A Reckoning for the Reign

Honorata Aldermere has served nine years to the day for the Aldermere Run, the panic that broke Meddick's bank. She built it with questions alone, and there was no lie in any of them. The only house that will hire her now is the Underwriter's House on Cordwain Street, which wants her to read rooms for its paper.

Amos Gage is the House's collector. He reads every slip whole and keeps his mother's blue passbook in his desk, the last line stamped by the bank that Honorata broke. He watched her trial from the back of the court, and now he answers for her.

When every slip in the city starts falling due on one morning, and the whispers in the fish market start sounding like her own old method, they become the only two people who can see that somebody is building her Run again, and the only two the builder needs to keep apart.

He has never forgiven her. His ledger is the only record that she is innocent this time.