Dante sat in the Broker’s dimly lit den, his fingers digging into the edge of the desk like it might somehow anchor him to reality, like the rough grain of the wood beneath his touch could tether him to something solid—something that hadn’t just been taken.

  Because something had been taken.

  And the worst part? He didn’t know what. It gnawed at him, a hollow absence burrowing into his chest, a void that logic couldn’t fill. This wasn’t like losing a key, a name, a memory that left a telltale gap in the fabric of his mind. No, this was worse. It was the sensation of reaching for something that had always been there, only to find nothing. No trace, no scar, no echo to suggest it had ever existed at all. The world moved forward, unbothered, indifferent to whatever had just been erased. And that was what sent cold dread curling down his spine—because how did you fight for something you couldn’t even remember losing?

  Across from him, the Broker looked entirely too pleased.

  He poured himself another glass of something dark and viscous, a liquid so thick it clung to the sides of the crystal like syrup, swirling in lazy, deliberate rotations as if it carried the weight of a thousand unspoken bargains. He studied its movement for a moment, then took a slow, measured sip, exhaling in satisfaction. “You survived your first collection,” he mused, his voice smooth as ink gliding over parchment. “That’s worth celebrating.” He took another sip, savoring it. “Of course, now you understand the real game, don’t you?”

  Dante forced his jaw to unclench, exhaling sharply. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Nothing’s free.”

  The Broker chuckled—a low, knowing sound, rich with amusement. “And yet,” he said, tilting his glass ever so slightly, “you still don’t know what you actually bought.”

  That hit like a gut punch. Dante’s grip tightened. His pulse hammered.

  He narrowed his eyes. “Then tell me.”

  The Broker didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he let the silence stretch, the weight of it settling over the room like a thick, oppressive fog. His gaze flicked over Dante, scrutinizing him in a way that felt less like assessing a man and more like evaluating a commodity. He didn’t just see Dante—he measured him, as if calculating worth, determining just how much value was left to extract. The look made Dante’s skin crawl, but he held firm, refusing to shift under the scrutiny.

  Then, slowly, the Broker set down his glass with a soft clink. He laced his fingers together, elbows resting on the desk, and gave a slow, knowing smile. “You’re asking the wrong question,” he murmured. “It’s not about what I can tell you. It’s about what you’re ready to know.” His voice dripped with something just shy of amusement, like a man indulging a child too impatient to understand the rules of the game. “And readiness, Dante… that’s never about knowledge. It’s about cost.”

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  The air in the room seemed to thicken, as if the very space between them had turned heavier, charged with unseen weight. Then, with a flick of his wrist, the Broker conjured a new contract.

  For a moment, the Broker only studied him, his ink-stained fingers tapping idly against the glass. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he conjured a new contract.

  Not Dante’s.

  Someone else’s.

  The parchment materialized between them, old and brittle, its edges curled with age, its surface riddled with creases and faded ink that, disturbingly, still pulsed—still lived. The letters twisted like trapped things, shifting and writhing in an unnatural dance, as if trying to escape the paper’s surface, as if refusing to be forgotten.

  Dante’s stomach twisted. He knew this kind of contract.

  A Pactmaker’s bond.

  The ink had been deliberately scoured away, not by time, not by neglect, but by intent. Someone—something—had reached into this document and forcibly stripped the identity from it, leaving behind only a whisper of what once was. But contracts weren’t so easily cleansed. Even as the name lay obscured, its absence carried a weight, a lingering imprint of something that should have been there. The letters that remained—faint, broken, resisting erasure—itched at the edges of Dante’s mind, teasing familiarity without offering clarity. He stared at them, willing recognition to surface, but the answer hovered just beyond his grasp.

  His pulse quickened. His breath shallowed. Somewhere, buried in the deepest parts of him, something stirred. A feeling—not quite memory, not quite instinct, but something more primal, something woven into his bones. His fingers twitched over the contract, hovering just above the parchment’s surface, and for a fleeting second, a sensation rippled through him—a pulling, a magnetic certainty that this document, this forgotten name, this lost Pact—was his. Not in the way that a contract belonged to its signer, but in a way that was more intimate, more visceral, like a thread of his very existence was tangled up in its ink.

  Dante swallowed hard, forcing himself to focus, but the unease had already settled deep. This wasn’t just some discarded Pact. This wasn’t some lost name from the past. This was something connected to him, something the Broker had brought forward for a reason. And as the ink slithered and twisted beneath his gaze, as if laughing at his uncertainty, he knew one thing with bone-deep certainty. Whoever had signed this contract wasn’t truly gone. Not completely. Not yet.

  And at the very top, where a name should have been, there was only a smudge. Faded. Erased. Scrubbed from existence.

  But even through the distortion, through the fragmented ink and blurred syllables, something about it still clawed at his mind, a whisper of familiarity slithering through his thoughts like an itch he couldn’t scratch.

  His breath came faster.

  His fingers hovered over the page, his skin prickling.

  “…That’s mine.”

  The Broker’s smirk sharpened. “No, Dante.” He slid the parchment toward him, tapping the faded name with a single inky fingertip. “This contract belonged to someone else. Someone who should be long, long dead.”

  Dante’s heart pounded. His hands curled around the brittle edges of the page, his throat dry, his mind screaming for an answer that refused to take shape. The ink slithered beneath his fingertips, the contract’s text shifting as if reacting to his touch.

  What the hell was he holding?

  The Broker’s voice was almost gentle when he spoke again, but it carried a weight that sent a cold shiver through Dante’s spine. “And yet, here you are,” he murmured, watching him with dark amusement. “Carrying their debt. Wearing their Pact.”

  He leaned forward, his grin stretching just a little too wide.

  “Tell me, Dante—”

  “What does that make you?”