Five minutes later, Iris was sitting at the rough wooden table. She had not touched the Sun-stone. She had barely glanced at it. To her, the shiny rock was irrelevant; the implication of the rock was everything.
She was reading Corva's black ledger. Her eyes darted across the text, her finger tracing the clauses of the "Retainer" agreement.
Hana watched her from the corner, distrust evident in her posture. "Who is she, Dante? Can she fight?"
"No," Dante said. "She can't fight. But she can kill you with her head."
Iris flipped the ledger closed with a snap. She took off her glasses and began to polish them with a silk handkerchief she had produced from nowhere.
"It is amateur work," Iris declared. "Standard predatory lending contracts disguised as guild loyalty. She treats you as a depreciating asset. Clause 4 allows her to seize your 'inventory' upon death. Clause 7 gives her rights to your 'future earnings' in perpetuity."
