Chapter 20: Devi’s Price

THE NOTE WAS simple and direct, like everything else about Devi.

Come see me. Time to settle accounts.

I found it tucked under my door when I returned from the Fishery, the paper fine and expensive, the handwriting precise. No signature, but none was needed. Only one person in Imre sent notes on paper that cost more than a week’s meals.

I considered ignoring it.

For about three seconds.

Then I grabbed my cloak and headed across the river.

Devi’s rooms sat above an unremarkable tavern called the Demon’s Advocate—a name that seemed more fitting every time I visited. The stairs were narrow and dark, the landing cramped, and the door itself was reinforced with iron bands that suggested the person behind it expected trouble.

I knocked.

“It’s open.”

The room beyond was exactly as I remembered it: small, cluttered, dominated by bookshelves that covered every wall and a desk that seemed designed more for defense than study. Devi sat behind that desk, her golden hair catching the lamplight, her eyes sharp as broken glass.

“You came quickly.” She didn’t look up from the papers she was examining. “I half expected you to run.”

“Running would be foolish. You have my blood and hair.”

“I do. And your signature on a contract you probably should have read more carefully.” She finally looked at me, her smile thin and knowing. “Sit down, Kvothe. We have things to discuss.”

I sat in the chair across from her desk—the only other seat in the room, positioned so that the person in it faced both Devi and the door. A deliberate choice, I suspected. Everything about this room was deliberate.

“The debt isn’t due for another month,” I said. “I checked the calendar.”

“The debt can be called in at my discretion. Paragraph seven, subsection three.” She leaned back. “But I’m not here to collect money. Money is boring. What I want from you is much more interesting.”

“Information?”

“Among other things.” She stood, began pacing behind her desk. “Tell me about the Archives. What you’ve found. What you’ve been looking for.”

“That’s a broad question.”

“Then give me a broad answer. Start with the restricted stacks. The sections Lorren doesn’t let students access.”

I hesitated. The Archives were officially off-limits to me—had been since the disaster with the lamp in my first year. I’d found ways around the restriction, of course, but admitting that to Devi felt like handing her ammunition.

“I know you’ve been sneaking in,” she said, reading my hesitation. “I know about Fela’s keys. I know about the window on the third floor that doesn’t lock properly.” She smiled. “I was a student here too, remember. I learned all the tricks long before you arrived.”

“Then why do you need me?”

“Because you’re looking for something specific. Something that has the librarians frightened and the Archives themselves feeling… off.” She stopped pacing, fixed me with those sharp eyes. “I want to know what you’ve found. About the Chandrian.”

The name hung in the air like smoke.

“How do you know about that?”

“I know about a lot of things.” She returned to her chair, settled into it with the ease of someone who was exactly where she wanted to be. “I know about the song your parents were writing. I know about the fire that killed them. I know about the white-haired man you’ve been hunting ever since.”

“That’s not exactly secret information. Chronicler found most of that in public records.”

“But the Chandrian themselves are secret. Their names, their powers, the seals that bind them.” Her voice was soft now, almost gentle. “I’ve been researching them for twelve years, Kvothe. Since before I was expelled. Since before you ever set foot in this city.”

“Why?”

“Because knowledge is power. And there’s no knowledge more powerful than the kind everyone else has forgotten.” She opened a drawer, withdrew a leather folder thick with papers. “I have sources Lorren doesn’t know about. Texts he thinks were destroyed. Information passed through… unofficial channels.”

“What kind of unofficial channels?”

“The kind that cost me my place at the University.” She tapped the folder. “Lorren found out I was copying restricted texts. Selling the copies to collectors who appreciated their value. He didn’t expel me for the copying—that happens all the time, and everyone pretends not to notice. He expelled me because of what I was copying.”

“The texts about the Chandrian.”

“Among other things. References to the Amyr. Fragments of the original namings. Histories that contradict everything the Tehlins teach.” She pushed the folder across the desk. “Take a look.”

I opened it carefully, half-expecting the pages to crumble at my touch. But they were sturdy, well-preserved—copies, not originals, but made with obvious care.

The first page was a genealogy. Names I didn’t recognize, connected by lines that traced relationships across centuries. But at the top of the chart, in careful calligraphy, were seven names I knew all too well.

Cyphus. Stercus. Ferule. Usnea. Dalcenti. Pale Alenta. Haliax.

“Where did you get this?”

“From a man who claimed to be descended from the original keepers of the doors.” Devi’s voice was matter-of-fact. “He died about six years ago. Quite suddenly. Left his collection to me, along with a warning that I probably shouldn’t have ignored.”

“What kind of warning?”

“That the things in these papers were still dangerous. Still relevant. That the beings they described weren’t legends or metaphors—they were real, and patient, and very much still active in the world.”

I turned to the next page. It was a map—old, faded, but clearly showing the Four Corners. Marked on it in red ink were seven locations, scattered across the continent with no obvious pattern.

“Those are supposed to be the binding sites,” Devi explained. “The places where the seals were set. The doors that keep… something… from getting through.”

“Something?”

“The papers are frustratingly vague on that point. References to ‘that which dwells beyond’ and ‘the sleepers in the dark’ and other poetic nonsense.” She scowled. “Whatever’s on the other side of those doors, the people who sealed them were too afraid to write about it clearly.”

“They were afraid of speaking things into being. Of naming what shouldn’t be named.”

“Maybe. Or maybe they just didn’t understand what they were dealing with.” She leaned forward. “But here’s the interesting part. Look at the dates.”

I looked. Each binding site was marked with a date—not a specific day, but an approximate era. And they weren’t all the same.

“They weren’t sealed at the same time,” I said slowly. “The earliest is… three thousand years ago. The most recent is…”

“About eight hundred. Just before the Empire fell.” Devi nodded. “The seals weren’t all set at once. They were added over centuries, as new… problems… emerged. New doors that needed closing. New things that needed binding.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is that the process didn’t stop. There’s no reason to think it’s complete.” She tapped the map. “What if there are more doors out there? More bindings that haven’t been documented? More seals that are waiting to fail?”

I thought about what I’d seen in the Fishery—the shadow coiling in Kilvin’s sphere. What Fela had described in the Archives—the heaviness, the fear, the sense of something pressing from the other side.

“You think something is happening now.”

“I think something has been happening for a while. And it’s accelerating.” She stood again, began pacing. “I have contacts. Merchants, travelers, people who owe me favors. For the past few years, they’ve been telling me stories. Strange dreams spreading through villages. Animals behaving oddly. Shadows that move against the light.”

“Those could be coincidences.”

“One could be. Ten could be. A hundred, scattered across the Four Corners, all starting within the same few years?” She shook her head. “The seals are weakening, Kvothe. Something is pushing against them. And if they break…”

“Then we have bigger problems than my debt to you.”

“Much bigger.” She sat back down, studying me with those calculating eyes. “Which brings me to my proposition.”

“What kind of proposition?”

“An alliance. Of sorts.” She folded her hands on the desk. “You want to find the Chandrian. I want to understand what’s happening to the world. Our interests align.”

“And the blood and hair you’re holding?”

“Consider them insurance. A guarantee that you won’t try to cut me out once you find what you’re looking for.” Her smile was thin. “I know your reputation, Kvothe. Brilliant, yes. Talented, certainly. But also impulsive, secretive, and prone to thinking you can handle everything alone.”

“And you think you can help me handle it?”

“I think I have resources you don’t. Contacts you can’t access. Information you can’t get anywhere else.” She tapped the folder. “I’ve spent twelve years building a network of people who know things. Who collect things. Who remember things that most of the world has forgotten.”

“What kind of things?”

“There’s a collector in Tarbean who has what he claims is a genuine Amyr text—one of the originals, not a copy. He’s been trying to sell it for years, but no one believes him.” She counted on her fingers. “There’s a woman in Vintas who can trace her bloodline back to one of the original namers—she knows songs that predate written language. There’s a man in the Small Kingdoms who claims to have seen one of the Seven with his own eyes, thirty years ago, and survived.”

“Survived how?”

“That’s what I want to find out.” She leaned forward. “Help me, Kvothe. Share what you know. Let me share what I know. Together, we might actually accomplish something before the seals fail and the world tears itself apart.”

I looked at the folder on her desk. At the genealogy chart, the map, the pages of careful research accumulated over more than a decade. Then I looked at Devi—at her sharp eyes and sharper mind, at the ambition and calculation that had driven her to collect all of this.

“Why should I trust you?”

“You shouldn’t. Trust is for people who don’t understand how the world works.” Her voice was frank. “But you can trust my self-interest. Whatever’s coming, I’d prefer to survive it. And I think working with you gives me a better chance than working alone.”

“That’s remarkably honest.”

“Lies are expensive. They need tending, like a garden full of poisonous plants. Truth costs nothing once it’s spoken.” She stood, extended her hand across the desk. “Do we have a deal?”

I didn’t take her hand immediately.

“Tell me about Lorren,” I said. “The real reason he expelled you.”

Devi’s expression flickered—the first crack in her composed facade I’d seen.

“That’s not relevant to our arrangement.”

“I think it is. You’re asking me to trust your information. Your contacts. Your interpretation of ancient mysteries.” I met her eyes. “I need to know how much of what you believe is based on evidence, and how much is based on something else.”

She was silent for a long moment.

Then she sat back down, and the mask of competence slipped, revealing something older and more complicated beneath.

“You know why Lorren expelled me,” she said quietly. “I told you. The room beneath the stacks. What he tried to do to me.”

“I remember.” The stone table forty-seven steps down. The bone needles. The copper ink. The inscription that her grandmother’s knotwork had partially deflected.

“Then you understand why I can’t let this go.” Her eyes were steady, unflinching. “The Archives were built on top of something ancient. Something that was there long before the University existed. Lorren knows---he’s always known---and he’s spent his entire career making sure no one else finds out.”

I thought about what she was saying. About the heaviness Fela had described. About the shadow in Kilvin’s sphere. About the dreams of doors opening that had plagued me since childhood.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” I said. “Why should I trust your information?”

“Because I’ve paid for it. In blood and time and the life I could have had if I’d just kept my head down and followed the rules.” Her voice hardened. “I gave up my place at the University, my reputation, my future as a proper arcanist. All because I couldn’t stop asking questions about things that were supposed to stay buried.”

“That doesn’t make you trustworthy. It makes you obsessed.”

“Obsession and trustworthiness aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, the obsessed are often the most reliable—they can’t afford to lie, because lies might contaminate the thing they care about most.” She stood again, extending her hand. “Take the deal, Kvothe. You know you’re going to. You’ve been looking for answers your whole life. I’m offering you a chance to actually find some.”

I looked at her hand.

At the folder full of secrets.

At the woman who had sacrificed everything for knowledge and found it wasn’t enough.

“One condition,” I said.

“Name it.”

“The blood and hair. If something goes wrong—if I die, or disappear, or can’t pay what I owe—you don’t use them. You destroy them.”

“Why would I agree to that?”

“Because if the seals really are failing, my corpse isn’t going to help you survive what comes through. And if I succeed in stopping it, you’ll want me to owe you a favor rather than a debt.” I met her eyes. “Think long-term, Devi. That’s what you’re good at.”

She considered for a moment.

Then, slowly, she smiled.

“Agreed. In the event of your death or permanent incapacitation, I’ll destroy the blood and hair.” She extended her hand again. “Now. Do we have a deal?”

I took her hand.

Her grip was strong, her skin cool. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice whispered that I was making a bargain I didn’t fully understand.

But then, that was true of most things in my life.

“Deal.”

We talked for hours.

Devi produced more documents, more maps, more fragments of ancient knowledge pieced together from a dozen different sources. I shared what I’d learned—about Cinder, about Master Ash, about the growing signs that something was stirring in the deep places of the world.

By the time we finished, the candles had burned low and the city outside her window had gone quiet.

“One more thing,” Devi said, as I prepared to leave. “Something that’s not in any of the papers.”

“Yes?”

“There’s a woman. In the University. Someone who knows more than she should about… everything.” Devi’s voice was careful. “She spends her nights in the tunnels under the Archives. Lives there, they say. Talks to things that aren’t there.”

“Auri.”

“You know her?”

“She’s a friend.” I felt a surge of protectiveness. “She’s not involved in this.”

“Isn’t she?” Devi’s eyes were sharp. “She lives in the spaces between. The places where the world doesn’t quite fit together. If anyone knows about doors and seals and things that shouldn’t be opened…”

“Leave her alone.”

“I’m not threatening her. I’m pointing out a resource.” Devi raised her hands. “Talk to her. Ask her what she’s seen. What she knows. She might surprise you.”

I didn’t answer.

But as I left Devi’s rooms and walked home through the predawn darkness, I couldn’t stop thinking about Auri. About the Underthing. About the spaces she moved through so easily, the places that existed between the cracks.

The places where doors might hide.

And where something ancient might be waiting to get through.

The next morning, I went to find her.

Not in the Underthing—I’d learned long ago that looking for Auri was pointless. She found you, or she didn’t. Instead, I went to the roof of the Artificers’ Hall at sunset, to the place where she sometimes appeared to watch the stars.

She wasn’t there.

But something else was.

A small cloth bag, sitting on the spot where she usually perched. Inside was a note written in Auri’s distinctive hand, wrapped around a smooth gear-wheel no bigger than my thumbnail:

The key I gave you is waking up. Can you feel it?

Be careful of the singing.

I reached into my pocket. The iron key Auri had given me in the Underthing weeks ago was there, where I always kept it. But she was right—it felt different now. Warmer. Heavier. As if it had been sleeping and was beginning to stir.

I held it up to the starlight. The symbols on its surface seemed to shift, though that might have been my imagination.

I put it back in my pocket and went back to my room.

That night, for the first time in weeks, I didn’t dream of doors.

I dreamed of songs. Songs silenced three thousand years ago.

Songs beginning to be heard again.