Page 22 of In an Absent Dream

“That means the debt is partially mine. I didn’t give her fair value as a friend. What kind of person goes off ‘for a minute’ and then doesn’t come home?” But her bed had been so tempting in the moonlight, white and clean and so much softer than the floor in front of the fire. The bed had welcomed her, and she had been lost.

Vincent nodded slowly. “You’re bigger now. I assume you’d like more pies.”

More pies would cost more, would leave her with less for buying Moon’s debt. Lundy was about to say that no, the old bargain would be fine, when her traitorous stomach grumbled loudly. She sighed. “What would it cost, do you think, to double what we had before?”

“Four pies each, every day, for a year?” Vincent thought for a moment before saying, reluctantly, “We could do a straight double on both sides—six pencils for the pies—but it takes more than a year for me to go through that many pencils. You’d have to find another way to pay for a second year.”

Lundy dipped a hand into her pocket, coming up with six pencils and offering them to him. “That’s still fair value. After a year, I’ll have something else I can barter with.” What it would be, she had no idea. That was a problem for the future. Right now, she needed to eat, and she needed to save her friend.

“Then it’s done. Four pies a day for each of you, for the next year.” Vincent had the pencils out of her hand and gone behind the counter in an instant. Then, kindly, he asked, “Would you like to eat before you go to buy Moon’s debt?”

“One pie, please. I’ll come back for the rest.”

He nodded, and pushed a single butter chicken pie across the counter.

It tasted like freedom. It tasted like coming home. Lundy offered her farewells around a mouthful of filling and turned away, scanning the market stalls for a blue flag with a white star in the corner. She didn’t see one. She began to walk.

Maybe it was the daylight, and maybe it was the pie in her hand, but some of the stall keepers recognized her now. Their cries of greeting mingled with the cries of those who merely wanted to hawk their wares, and the sweet symphony of it all made her feet light and her heart calm. She ate as she walked, and when the last bite of pie slid down her throat she saw it, the blue banner, the white star. She walked faster.

The stall was dark blue canvas, while the banner was the blue of a morning sky, bright and clean and yet untouched by the day. The flap was closed. Lundy hesitated before parting it, ever so slightly, and calling, “Hello?”

“Enter,” said a voice, familiar and regretful.

Lundy stepped inside. The Archivist, dressed in a velvet gown the color of her banner, looked up from the great ledger where she’d been writing sums. Her face, as ever, was kind.

“Welcome,” she said. “Did you eat?”

“You’rehere,” said Lundy. “Why are you here?”

“Because someone said they wanted to buy a debt, and I am the Market’s archivist in task as well as title,” the Archivist replied. “Someone has to be willing to check the sums, on the rare occasions when someone disputes fair value. Someone has to put a face to the balance of things. Why areyouhere?”

“Because I’m someone,” said Lundy. “Moon. I want to buy Moon’s debt.”

“She has quite a lot of it. Are you sure?”

Lundy hesitated. What if she couldn’t afford the whole thing? What if she found herself covered in feathers, more bird than human, unable to leave the Market without putting herself in a zoo?

And what kind of friend would she be if that mattered?

“Yes,” she said. “I’m sure.”

“Then show me what you have.”

The things that had seemed so grand and clever when pilfered from the school seemed small and unremarkable now. The ribbons, the pencils, the pieces of copper wire, even the golden rings were lessened as she lay them out, one after the other, for the Archivist’s appraisal. Blank notebooks and spare socks and rocks she had found in the forest, she put them all down, until her bag was empty, and she put that next to the lot. For a moment, she considered removing her shoes, but decided against it. The Archivist would tell her if it was necessary.

The Archivist looked thoughtfully at the pile, then back to Lundy. “It is enough,” she said finally. “But there will be another, less tangible cost.”

“Anything,” said Lundy.

“That word, that promise, strike it from your tongue,” said the Archivist. “With that word, I could ask for the heart in your chest and the blood in your veins and you could not stop me. There is no value fair enough to warrant an open check. Fortunately, I have no interest in taking advantage of children, especially not children who have entrusted themselves to my care. Here is the price. Listen well, and if you will accept it, sign my book:

“All you have offered, I will have, but I will also have your friendship with Moon. I won’t take it right away. I won’t need to. You’re not children any longer, Lundy, and even if you never say a word, never even imply that a debt exists—even if the Market itself says this was fair value intended and given—Moon will read the debt into your silences. She will create it, and in its creation, create the imbalance that accompanies it. She won’t see you as her boon companion anymore, but as someone who owns her. Friendship will fall away, drowned in the sea of her resentment. That is what you will pay to save her. Do you accept?”

Lundy stared at her, stricken. “What? No! We’ve always taken debts for each other. We’ve always . . . we’ve always given fair value. You said a single ribbon didn’t have to mean the same thing to different people. This is my single ribbon. It doesn’t mean anything near as much as she does. Why do you have to take her away from me if I bring her back?”

“I don’t. I won’t. Not even the Market will. But she’ll take herself, and if you accept that fact now, it will be part of the payment, and she’ll owe you nothing when she goes.”

“Does ithaveto happen?”

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