CHAPTER 12

The landlord was waiting outside my door when I got home, arms crossed, his expression already set in a way that told me this wasn't a friendly visit. I felt my stomach drop before he'd even opened his mouth, some instinct recognizing trouble before my mind had caught up to the shape of it.

"Ms. Aderyn. We need to talk about your account."

"My account?" I set my bag down slowly, my pulse already climbing before I understood why. "I'm current. Maevra paid this month, same as always."

"Nothing came through." He said it flatly, like he'd said it a hundred times before to a hundred other tenants who'd tried the same excuse. "Not this month. Not last month, actually, now that I'm looking closer. You're two months behind."

The words didn't land right away. They just sort of hovered there, refusing to fit into anything that made sense. I stood in the hallway with my key still in my hand, the metal biting into my palm from how tightly I'd been holding it, waiting for some part of this to start making sense.

"That's not possible," I said. "I gave her the money myself. Both times. In person."

"I don't know what you gave who. I know what hit my account, and that's nothing." His voice wasn't cruel, just tired, a man who'd clearly had this exact conversation too many times to have patience left for it. "I need it resolved by the end of the week, or I start the eviction process. I'm sorry. I've got bills too."

Panic arrived somewhere behind my ribs, fast and cold, elbowing the confusion aside before I'd even finished processing it. Two months. Not one mistake, one miscommunication I could untangle with a single phone call. Two.

"Please, just give me a few days. I can figure this out."

"You've got until Friday." He was already walking away, done with the conversation before I'd fully absorbed what it meant. "I don't want to put you out. But I can't keep carrying a unit that isn't paying."

I stood there in the hallway for a long moment after he'd gone, my heart going too fast, the numbers refusing to stop repeating in my head. Two months. That was rent for two months, money I'd handed over myself, money that should have been sitting in this man's account instead of vanishing somewhere between my hand and his.

My hands were shaking by the time I got my key into the lock. I sat down hard on the edge of my bed once I was inside, the walls of my own room suddenly feeling smaller than they had that morning, like the ground I'd thought I was standing on had quietly been removed while I wasn't looking. I did the math without wanting to — two months of rent, on top of everything else already stretched thin, was a number I genuinely didn't know how to produce by Friday, even if I sold everything I owned that had any value at all.

• • •

I called Maevra the second I got inside, pacing my room, phone pressed hard against my ear.

"There's a problem with the rent," I said, before she'd even finished saying hello. "The landlord says nothing's been paid. Two months, he said. I gave you the money both times."

"What? That can't be right." Her voice came out immediately shocked, pitched perfectly into concern, not a beat of hesitation in it. "Let me think — oh, Zéphyrine, did you give me the full amount both times? Because I remember thinking one of those envelopes felt light."

"It was the full amount. I counted it twice before I gave it to you."

"Well, I don't know what to tell you, sweetheart. I passed along whatever you gave me." A small, apologetic laugh, the kind designed to make the whole thing sound like an honest, forgivable mix-up. "Maybe there was a mistake somewhere in between. These things happen."

Something cold slid through me, quieter than the panic, harder to name. "Two months of mistakes, Maevra? Both times?"

"I'm not sure what you're implying." Her tone shifted, just slightly, warmth cooling into something more careful. "I'm trying to help you, and you're accusing me of something. That's not fair."

I closed my eyes, pressing my free hand against my forehead, trying to hold onto the thread of the conversation instead of the panic threatening to swallow it whole. "I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm trying to figure out where two months of rent disappeared to."

"Well, I'll ask around. Maybe the building's payment system had an error." Another laugh, lighter this time, already moving past it. "I have to go, sweetheart. We'll sort it out."

"Maevra, wait. I need something in the meantime. The landlord's giving me until Friday."

"Friday? That's absurd, they can't just threaten a young woman like that." She clicked her tongue, sympathetic and useless in the same breath. "Look, let me make a call in the morning. I'm sure this is just a misunderstanding between the bank and the office. You worry too much, you know that? It's not good for you."

You worry too much. The same phrase Valerian used to reach for whenever my concerns became inconvenient to him. I hadn't expected to hear it from her too, delivered with the same practiced gentleness, designed to make the problem sound like it lived in my head instead of in her hands.

She hung up before I could say anything else, and I stood there holding a phone that had gone silent, feeling more unsettled than I had before I called her, not less.

• • •

I called Rhydian next, because I didn't know who else to call, and because some part of me had already started trusting that he'd pick up without making me feel foolish for needing to. He answered on the second ring.

"They're saying I haven't paid rent in two months," I said, the words tumbling out faster than I meant them to. "I gave the money to Maevra both times. She says it's a mistake somewhere, but I don't understand how the same mistake happens twice."

"Okay. Slow down." His voice was steady, grounding, exactly what I needed and hadn't known how to ask for. "Do you have proof you gave her the money? Bank transfer, receipt, anything?"

"I transferred it directly to her account both times. I have the confirmations."

"Then pull them up. Right now, while we're on the phone."

I opened my banking app with shaking hands, scrolling back through the months until I found them — two transfers, exact amounts, dates lining up perfectly with when rent was due. Sent. Received. Confirmed.

"I have them," I said. "The money left my account both times. It went through."

"Then it went somewhere," Rhydian said quietly. "It just didn't go to the landlord."

The sentence landed heavier than anything the landlord himself had said. I stared at the screen, at the two confirmations sitting there in black and white, undeniable, and felt the last of my confusion curdle into something sharper.

The money hadn't disappeared into some clerical mistake. It had gone exactly where I'd sent it.

Someone on the other end had simply chosen not to pass it along.

"Zéphyrine," Rhydian said, when I didn't respond. "You still there?"

"Yeah." My voice came out smaller than I wanted it to. "I'm just trying to understand how someone does this. Twice. To someone who trusted them."

"You don't have to understand it tonight," he said gently. "You just have to know it's not your fault. And that you have proof."

I looked at the two confirmations again, the numbers steady and unambiguous in a way nothing else about tonight had been, and understood, with a clarity that made my stomach drop all over again, that Friday's deadline wasn't actually the real problem anymore.

The real problem was figuring out exactly what Maevra had done with my money — and why.

I sat there long after the call ended, staring at the two confirmation screens until the numbers blurred, replaying every time she'd insisted on handling things for me, every time I'd been grateful for one less thing to carry. It had never occurred to me to wonder what handling things might actually mean, or what it might cost me to have trusted her with something this important without ever once checking behind her.

I didn't sleep much that night. I just kept scrolling back through the two transfers, as if staring at them long enough might change where the money had actually gone.