Page 101 of Demon’s Snack

Her eyes soften despite the fear tightening her mouth. “Go do your numbers. I’ll listen for footsteps with expensive shoes.”

The ledger chamber waits at the end of the eastern hall, narrow, windowed, and lined with account shelves Lord Vaerith believes are too tedious for anyone dangerous to search properly. The room is warmed by lampflame, and the mineral bite of fresh ward residue clings to the fragments I carried in for show. I set those fragments on a tray near the door, open the damage ledger on my desk, and sit before my hands can decide to tremble.

Corin is somewhere beyond the estate boundary, alive and angry enough that I can almost feel his restraint like heat banked under ash.

I cannot afford to think about that.

I open the day’s accounts.

The first column is exactly what I expect: ceremonial ward posts, amplification runes, dais reinforcement, witness rail installation, spell-lamp rentals, clerk stipends, and “ritual projection materials.” The last phrase is the sort of expensive vagueness that often hides crimes. I mark it with a small dot beside the left margin, then pull the soul-energy intake records from the lower drawer and lay them beside the public expense sheet.

The numbers do not match.

They fail in a subtle way, which is always more insulting. A fool steals round sums. A professional steals in ratios.

I trace the ritual supply expenses back three months, then six, then two years. The same pattern repeats beneath different names: ward reinforcement, civic containment renewal, emergency perimeter strengthening, infernal residue disposal. Each expense corresponds to a soul-energy intake increase, but the intake never appears in the estate’s usable reserves. It arrives, gets recorded, then disappears through shell contracts attached to minor labor houses, repair guilds, and false warding vendors that exist only on paper.

My fingers grow colder as the pattern tightens.

Vaerith has been skimming soul-energy for years.

Not small amounts, either. He has hidden siphoning beneath legitimate maintenance, using civic fear as a revenue stream and human desperation as fuel. Every “ward reinforcement” payment links to a contract channel that pulls more than authorized. Every shell agreement splits the excess and routes it through private holding ledgers marked inactive.

I turn one page.

Then another.

By the time I reach the third shell vendor, the proof is no longer a thread. It is rope.

“Well,” I whisper to the empty room, “that is extremely rude of you.”

The door opens before I can hide the secondary ledger.

Lady Syrenya Vaelith steps inside without knocking, which is how nobles announce they have mistaken every room for their own. She wears deep green today, loose sleeves embroidered with gold vinework, and the tattoos winding up her arms seem darker in the lampglow. Her emerald eyes move from my face to the open ledgers, then to the tray of scorched ward fragments near the door.

“Damage assessment,” she says pleasantly. “How industrious.”

I close the intake ledger halfway with a calm hand. “Lady Syrenya. This chamber is not generally used for receiving visitors.”