Chapter 923 - 923: Sanguina Buys A Prisoner With Her Blood

The exchange clerk had hidden Vick behind three legal curtains and one ugly wine cabinet.

Sanguina found him because the cabinet kept losing a quarter second.

Its brass latch clicked. The sound arrived after the door had moved. Another click followed when the red route chip in Sanguina's hand pulled toward the wall and cut her palm through her glove.

She had taken the chip from Yara's coffin axle. Yara had chosen her surgeon, barred every return stamp from the infirmary, and made two attendants repeat her name before Sanguina left. The woman had earned control of one room at least.

The chip had led Sanguina through a blood gate and into Ninth Tithe House, where vampire merchants settled border debts without admitting the word sale belonged anywhere near the process.

Registrar Mirel stepped between her and the cabinet. He wore six ink sleeves over each arm. The lowest pair shook.

"I delayed the transfer because your seal appeared on that route chip."

"That was kind of you, Registrar. It was still theft."

Mirel glanced toward the witnesses seated along the exchange wall. Three court factors watched through red glass masks. A fourth chair held a man in gray with seven cuts across his wooden face guard.

"Your father has not approved a mortal claim inside this hall."

"My father never carried him through a Shinigami swamp."

She shoved the cabinet aside. One wheel stayed put for an extra beat, then scraped across the tile after the others stopped.

Behind it, Vick sat inside the exchange clock.

Iron bands held his wrists against two copper rails. His old sword passed through a wheel above his right shoulder, edge trapped between teeth that turned whenever the house stamped a gate. Each tooth touched the blade, slowed, and gave the hidden freight channel time to move before the official count caught up.

His purple cloak had become a strip around the sword grip. More gray ran through his hair than Sanguina remembered. The look he gave her had survived intact.

"You said you were leaving forever, Lady Sanguina."

"Yes, and you declined a perfectly good invitation."

"His Majesty scheduled three meetings before noon that day."

"That excuse has aged worse than your right sleeve."

The sleeve had been cut open from shoulder to cuff. Black route marks circled the arm that Vick had once broken while blocking a club meant for her skull. She remembered waking in swamp water, seeing his sword hold, and promising to see to the injury.

Then came Puggles, the Dragoon, Erebos, the missing finger, and a departure Sanguina had treated as permanent because permanent sounded cleaner than late.

Vick tested one wrist band. The exchange clock took a piece of the motion and spent it on another turn.

"I would appreciate an exit before the wheel takes my elbow next."

Sanguina reached for the nearest band.

Mirel caught her forearm with two ink sleeves. The other four stayed folded against his chest, as though restraint performed with fewer hands might offend her less.

"Breaking exchange iron converts every attached name into escaped debt."

Vick leaned his head against the copper rail.

"There are fourteen names, and mine belongs at the bottom."

The man in the seven cut mask shifted in his chair.

"The other names cleared their crossings. This carrier remained as payment."

Sanguina looked at Vick. He gave the smallest shake of his head.

"They crossed because I struck the gate until it stayed late. The contract called us an escort company when we entered."

Mirel released Sanguina's arm and pulled a ledger from beneath his sleeves. The first page showed fourteen thumb marks beside a royal guard transfer. Three pages later, the same marks sat beneath a carrier service debt. The handwriting changed halfway through the word escort.

Sloppy. Erebos usually buried his knives deeper. Someone beneath him had learned the shape of his work and skipped the patience.

"Who rewrote the contract after King Griswald disappeared from your world?"

"A friendly courier who knew your uncle's favorite stew."

Vick watched the seven cut mask while he answered. The masked man kept his hands flat on his knees.

Potato dragon stew had once cooled in Sanguina's hands while Erebos sat beside her after training, feeding a hurt child without demanding gratitude. Of course he knew where that memory left the guard open.

The route chip bit farther into her glove.

"Registrar, place the original labor page on the claim table."

Mirel's upper sleeves crossed.

"My office protected him from three buyers before you arrived today."

"You protected my family from embarrassment and called it mercy."

The words hurt him because they were accurate. Mirel had hidden Vick long enough to keep royal blood away from an ordinary auction. He wanted the court to remain clean. Vick's skin under the bands had paid for the delay.

Mirel opened the table anyway.

A shallow stone bowl rose between them. Vick's ledger fitted beneath it, followed by the sword record, fourteen unpaid routes, and a narrow ownership strip describing him as the warm part required to carry the blade.

Sanguina read that line twice.

"I am purchasing the man, his blade, every unpaid hour, and every name your house tried separating from them."

The masked broker stood.

"The blade belongs to the route office under prior calibration law."

Vick twisted his right wrist until the band forced his knuckles white. His fingers reached the purple cloth around the hilt. One pull brought the sword edge against an iron tooth.

The broker's next step arrived late.

His heel hung above the tile while his body tried to continue. He dropped hard when the stolen quarter second returned.

Vick looked toward Mirel.

"That should settle which hand the blade still answers."

Mirel placed the sword record beneath the bowl.

The claim table rejected Sanguina's coin, her travel seal, and the small blue crystal she had kept from Vick's battlefield. The bowl remained dry.

"An active carrier claim crossing realm borders requires living house weight."

"Use plain words before your office invents another curtain."

Mirel lowered all six hands.

"The house requires your blood and suspends your private gates."

That price reached her properly.

Her teleportation belonged to her more than any castle did. Losing the private seals meant asking permission to cross until Dracula heard the claim. It meant court attendants, scheduled gates, and brothers who would discover the story before breakfast.

Vick pulled his fingers away from the sword.

"Leave me here if the payment cages you beside me."

Sanguina peeled off the torn glove.

"You took a club across that arm while I slept in mud. I remember my debts, even when I arrive disgracefully late."

She pressed the cut in her palm against the bowl.

The stone held the wound open. Blood gathered without running over the rim. The first measure bought Vick's body out of the carrier line. The second returned his sword. A third cleared the altered contract and restored the fourteen names to the original escort page.

The bowl kept pulling.

Cold climbed through Sanguina's fingers. One by one, the feel of her home gates vanished. She knew each missing door by where her route sense failed and kept her hand down until the ownership strip split through the sentence calling Vick warm equipment.

Mirel tore it in half.

The exchange clock released both wrist bands. Vick stood carefully, took his sword from the wheel, and used Sanguina's discarded glove to wrap her palm before touching anything else.

"I still owe fourteen people an explanation and several wages."

"Good, because I purchased the paperwork instead of your obedience."

Every court factor along the wall turned a mask toward the claim bowl. Dracula's seal appeared in its base, black at first, then red around the edge.

Sanguina expected a summons.

A folded skin map pushed up through her blood.

Vick caught one corner before it slid from the table. Twelve thin roads crossed the surface. Each entered a different vampire border and ended at the same square prison drawn outside them all.

The masked broker bowed toward the map and backed through the freight door.

Erebos's handwriting appeared beneath Vick's thumb.

Your father may keep every road after my carrier returns.

When Vick laid his sword against the first line, the map lost a quarter second and all twelve border roads moved before the stolen time returned.