The door under the water dropped them onto stairs. Ty hit first. His shoulder cracked stone. His sickles scraped sparks out of the step beneath him. Water poured after him with receipt scraps, painted mouths, and one collector hand still trying to crawl.
JJ landed on his back.
"Ow."
"You jumped into the flooded murder tunnel," Ty said.
"You jumped first."
"I am made of bones."
"That is not a permission slip."
Omina came through the water door next and hit standing because generals had annoying hobbies. Yun-Jin came with her, teeth clenched, one hand pressed to her side. Heissman arrived last, rolled down three steps, and stopped with his sword arm over his face.
"I resign from architecture."
The water door slammed shut above them. Silence followed. No crowd. No cart bell. No collectors. Only stairs. They descended in both directions, narrow and gray, with walls so close Ty's sickles scraped if he turned too fast. Numbers had been carved into every step.
One. Two. Three. The staircase went down farther than sight and up into the water-locked door. JJ pushed herself off Ty.
"Please tell me we are in the Name Office."
Omina looked at the numbers.
"No."
"Wonderful. Where are we?"
Heissman sat up.
"A punishment stair."
Yun-Jin wiped water from her mouth.
"You know it?"
"I was assigned to guard one during academy discipline week."
"Why does an academy have a punishment stair?"
"For discipline."
"That explained nothing."
"It explained the academy."
Ty stood. The mark under his left eye socket pulsed white. Step nine pulsed with it. JJ saw the number glow.
"Nobody step on nine."
Heissman's laugh had no joy in it.
"There is always a nine."
Omina's expression confirmed the problem before she spoke.
"Every ninth step tests payment."
"Tests what payment?" JJ asked.
"Whatever the lane thinks you still owe."
Ty looked down the stair. Nine waited six steps below. It looked like any other stone except for the wet shine over the number.
"Then I go first."
"No," three people said.
He looked back. JJ, Yun-Jin, and Omina had spoken at the same time. Heissman lifted a hand from the floor.
"I was emotionally included."
Ty almost laughed. The sound died behind his teeth. His missing memory sat where laughter should have reached. Jade on a rainy street. Gone now. The gap left a nameless bruise. JJ saw the change in him.
"The toll hurt."
"Yes."
"Do you remember what you paid?"
"I remember paying it."
"That is cruel."
"This place has a theme."
Omina stepped down to the fourth stair.
"We move in order. No rushing. No hero charges."
Ty stared at her. She stared back.
"Other people are being hunted too."
That was true. He hated that too. They descended. Five. Six. Seven. The walls tightened. Eight. On the ninth step, Heissman screamed. Ty turned too late. Heissman had not touched the ninth step. His shadow had.
The shadow stretched wrong along the wall, thin and tall, wearing an academy uniform with silver cuffs. Around it stood three older boys with clean boots and bored faces.
"Half blade," one shadow said.
Heissman's real body froze on step eight. The half sword shook in his hand. The academy shadow lifted its chin.
"Show us how a second lieutenant begs when the family account goes empty."
Yun-Jin moved. Omina caught her by the back of the collar.
"Do not step on nine."
"He is trapped."
"Yes."
Ty lifted a sickle. The stair wall scratched words beside him.
OUTSIDE VIOLENCE ACCEPTED AS GROUP DEBT
JJ grabbed his wrist.
"No."
Heissman's breath came through his teeth. The shadow boys laughed. One kicked his shadow in the ribs. The real Heissman folded a little.
"This is old," Heissman said.
His voice was too calm.
"This is paid."
The stair answered in a child's voice.
DEBT DISPUTED
Heissman lifted his head.
"Of course it is."
He stepped onto nine. Omina cursed. The old scene hit him in full. The shadows became bodies. Damp academy stone replaced the stair wall. Rain hammered high windows. A younger Heissman knelt in a training yard with a wooden sword broken beside him. Three older cadets stood around him.
JJ saw all of it like she stood at the edge of somebody else's wound. The lead cadet held a ledger.
"Your father's payment failed."
Young Heissman wiped blood from his mouth.
"Then bill him."
"We did. He sold your mother's ring first."
The real Heissman shook. Ty's grip tightened on the sickle. Yun-Jin's voice cut through the memory.
"Heissman."
Her voice missed him. The lead cadet dropped the ledger in the mud.
"Pick it up with your teeth."
Young Heissman looked at the ledger. Then at the cadet. Then he smiled with a mouth full of blood.
"Read the balance first. I like to know what I am biting."
The memory faltered. The real Heissman laughed once. Ugly. Honest.
"I was always charming."
He drove the half sword into the ledger. The memory split. Step nine cracked down the middle. The stair wrote a new line.
DEBT ACKNOWLEDGED
SHAME PAYMENT REFUSED
INTEREST TRANSFERRED
"Transferred where?" JJ asked.
The answer came from step eighteen. It lit under Yun-Jin's foot. She went rigid. Omina pulled her back, but the stair had already opened. Pink light filled the walls.
Yun-Jin stood in a childhood room with smoke under the door, an arrow in her small hands, and two silhouettes kneeling outside in royal chains. Ty's fire went cold. Yun-Jin whispered, "No." Omina's grip failed. The stair took both women at once.
On step twenty-seven below them, a door appeared with the Name Office seal burned into its wood. The door began to close. JJ looked from the door to Yun-Jin's memory. Ty already knew the choice. Save the route.
Save the people. Omina made it before he could. She stepped fully into Yun-Jin's memory and shoved the younger girl away from the smoke. The Name Office door closed another inch. Omina looked back once.
"Go."
Yun-Jin screamed her name. Ty jumped down the stairs toward the closing door. The stair laughed with every ninth step.