I stared at Moth's outstretched hand. It was small and gray, with fingernails like chipped slate.
"A promise," I said. "What kind?"
"The kind that keeps you breathing." He glanced over his shoulder. The horn had stopped, but the ground still shivered under my bare feet. "Hell runs on deals, bookkeeper. Nobody walks here for free."
I almost laughed. Free was the one thing I had never been. My whole life had been numbers, rules, and fine print.
"Then tell me the terms," I said.
Moth blinked his single golden eye. "The terms?"
"Every deal has them. Say them out loud, slowly, and do not skip anything."
He tilted his head, and for a moment he looked like a street cat that had just heard a mouse speak. "Most souls beg me to hurry."
"Most souls? Hmm... guess that's how they get cheated."
A thin smile cracked his face. He cleared his throat and held up three fingers. "One. I guide you through the first layer. Two. You owe me one favor, to be named later. Three. If anything hunts you, I run, and you do not blame me."
"Hell no."
"No?"
"The favor has no limit." I pointed at his second finger. "To be named later could mean anything. You could ask me to give you my arms."
Moth scratched his ear. "That was the idea."
"Then change it. One favor, one task, and I must be able to survive it. Also, you do not run. You stay with me until I reach the second gate."
"That is two changes."
"Then you get two favors back from me in a better shape," I said. "You will find my word is worth more than a loose promise."
He studied me for a long moment. The wind rolled across the plain, carrying a smell like burnt sugar. Somewhere in the red dark, something began to howl.
Moth's grin grew wider and stranger. "You are going to be trouble."
"Do we have a deal?"
He grabbed my hand. A hot stripe ran across our palms, and a thin gold thread tied itself around both our wrists. It pulsed once and sank into my skin.
"Done," Moth said. "Now run!"
He did not wait for an answer. He grabbed my sleeve and dragged me across the plain, his coat flapping behind him like a torn flag. My feet slapped over cracked stone and loose bone. Every breath scorched my throat.
Behind us, the howling grew louder.
I glanced back, and my stomach dropped.
Four shapes were racing over the ridge. They looked like hounds, but their bodies were made of black smoke, with long white ribs showing through. Their eyes burned like lanterns. Behind them rode a tall figure on a skeletal horse, carrying a rusted iron hook as long as a fishing pole.
"Who are they?" I gasped.
"Collectors," Moth said. "They find souls that owe something and drag them to the lower layers. You are covered in debts. You are the juiciest meal they have seen in a century."
"Those debts are not mine!"
"Hell does not care whose they are. It only cares who is carrying them."
The first hound leaped. I threw myself sideways, and its jaws snapped shut a hand's width from my ear. Hot breath washed over my neck. Moth kicked a skull at its face, and the beast yelped and rolled away.
"Over here!" Moth shouted.
He dove behind a ridge of black glass. I crashed down beside him, scraping my elbows raw. The hounds circled, sniffing, their lantern eyes sweeping over us.
My heart hammered. I looked down at the gray threads wrapped around my body. They glowed brighter now, like beacons shouting where we were.
Think, Emma, I told myself. You do this every day. Follow the number back to its source.
I pinched one thread between two fingers. It felt like cold wire. When I traced it with my eyes, the line ran across the plain, up through the red sky, and out of sight. But close to my chest, where it touched me, I noticed something odd.
A tiny word was stitched into the knot. I leaned closer and read it: Ardent.
My breath caught. "Moth. The threads are tied to my family name."
"Of course they are." He peeked over the glass and ducked back fast. "Names are anchors here. Whoever owes the debt must sign it with a name. Your Lord Veyron signed his sins with yours."
My hands went cold. Veyron had not only framed me. He had planned this far ahead, using my own name as the bucket for his crimes.
"Can I cut it free?"
"Yes." Moth finally looked at me, and his voice dropped low. "But a name is not something you can borrow back. If you cut the anchor, the name burns away. You will never speak it, write it, or hear it again without feeling nothing at all. Your family name will be gone."
I thought of my mother's kitchen. I thought of my father's voice calling the family to dinner, saying our name with pride, as if it were something shining.
A hound's claws scraped the glass above us.
"If I keep it, they take me," I whispered.
"If you keep it, they take you."
I closed my eyes. Then I did what I always did when numbers hurt. I made myself count. One name, one life. Which one weighed more?
The answer was cruel and simple. "Cut it," I said.
Moth pulled a tiny knife from his sleeve. The blade was black and curved like a claw. "This will sting."
"Just do it."
He sliced through the nearest thread.
A scream tore out of me, though I could not tell whether it was pain or grief. Heat ripped through my chest, and silver sparks poured from the cut like ash from a dying fire.
The remaining threads snapped one after another, curling and blackening until they crumbled into gray flakes that drifted down over my shoulders.
Then it was quiet.
I opened my eyes. My hands were shaking, and my cheeks were wet. I tried to remember my family name, but there was only a smooth, hollow space, like a tooth that had been pulled.
"What was it?" I asked. "My name. What was it?"
Moth looked away. "I cannot say it. It is gone from you, and it is gone from me too."
I swallowed a sob. Something was missing, and I knew it, but I could not grieve for what I could not name. That was the worst part.
Above us, the hounds stopped sniffing. One by one, their burning eyes turned dull. They shook their heads, confused, as if they had forgotten what they were chasing.
The rider on the skeletal horse trotted closer. His hood was low, and his iron hook dragged along the ground, throwing sparks. He stopped beside our hiding place.
I held my breath.
He leaned down from his saddle and sniffed the air. Slowly, his hollow face swung toward me. I felt his gaze crawl over my skin like cold water.
"Odd," he rasped. "I smelled a rich debt here. Now there is only ash."
Behind the glass, Moth pressed a finger to his lips.
The rider waited. A drop of sweat ran down my spine. At last he straightened, turned his horse, and whistled sharply. The hounds followed him back over the ridge, and the howling faded into the distance.
I let out a breath I had held for ages. My legs gave way, and I slid down against the glass.
Moth sat beside me, his coat dusted gray. He looked at the ash falling from my shoulders, and then at me, with something close to respect.
"Well," he said quietly. "You need a name for Hell now. Down here, a soul with no name is nobody's soul. Any demon could claim you."
I brushed a flake of ash from my sleeve. It left a dark smudge across my fingers.
"Then I will make my own," I said.
I looked at the gray dust still drifting around me, the remains of everything Veyron had tried to bury me under.
"Ash," I said. "Call me Emma Ash."
The gold thread around my wrist flared. For a heartbeat, the whole plain went silent, as if Hell itself had leaned in to listen.
Then my vision changed. Faint lines of color lit up around Moth's chest, red and gold and thin as spider silk. I saw them clearly, each one tied to his body.
Moth's face went pale.
"What?" I asked. "What is wrong?"
He stared at me, then slowly pointed at the brightest thread, the one running from his heart across the plains toward a great black tower on the horizon.
"You can see that?"
"I can see all of them," I whispered.
His gold eye trembled. "Little bookkeeper, nobody has been able to see debts in a thousand years. And that one you are looking at?" He swallowed hard. "It does not lead to a creditor. It leads to the one who sent me to find you."