The storm broke in the early hours of morning. Gotham's streets gleamed with rain, black rivers pooling in alleys where bodies had burned just nights before.
The sky above was a bruised gray, thunder curling low like the growl of a wounded beast.
Jonathan, Isadora, Scrap, and Crane slipped through the drenched district with only the sound of water and their own footsteps to mark them. None spoke much the diary from the archives still pressed heavy on their minds. The words of the founders clung to Jonathan like chains: Bought with fire and the firstborn.
But Isadora had insisted there was more. "Diaries are fragments. I want the ledger," she had said. "The true account. If The Owe has lasted this long, then somewhere, someone has been keeping tally."
Scrap had nodded like a hound catching scent. "Ledger means records. Records mean paper. Paper means hiding places. Vale's church would be the best guess."
And so they found themselves again at the crooked silhouette of Saint Ardent's, its tower a jagged finger stabbing at the stormy sky.
The church doors groaned as Jonathan shoved them open. Inside, incense and mildew battled for dominion, the pews warped and dark from years of neglect.
At the far end, the altar sagged, its marble stained with candle soot and age. Jonathan half-expected Father Vale to rise out of the shadows, his sermons sharp as knives. But the priest was absent, and the silence was heavier for it.
Scrap scampered down the aisles, knocking on panels and stone like a rat testing walls. "Not here. Not in the open. Ledger's too big, too important." He stopped, rapping on the side of the altar. The hollow sound made Jonathan stiffen.
"Here," Scrap grinned, eyes glinting. "There's space under."
Together, they heaved. The altar stone shifted just enough to reveal a recessed hatch, iron-banded and heavy. Crane dragged it open, the smell of damp parchment wafting up like breath from a crypt.
They descended into the dark, lanterns casting thin halos in the underground chamber. What lay inside was no simple archive.
It was a vault.
The walls were lined with shelves that sagged beneath the weight of books ledgers upon ledgers, each bound in leather darkened with age. Some so swollen with ink and mildew they looked ready to burst. Dust rose like mist with every step, coating their lungs, their skin, their very souls.
Scrap stared, awe widening his eyes. "It's all here. Every name. Every coin. Every life they ever took."
Jonathan reached for the largest volume, its spine cracked, its weight nearly too much for one arm. The cover bore no title, only a single brand scorched into the leather: the shape of a circle, broken by a downward slash.
He set it on a stone table, opened it.
Ink crawled across the pages, tight and meticulous. Line after line of transactions, payments, tithes. And beside each names. Families, stretching back centuries. Wayne. Langsley. Vale. Boone. Blackthorn.
Jonathan flipped further, pages crinkling under his wet fingers. His throat closed when he saw it:
1784 — Abraham Wayne, 1st son, pledged.
1812 — Elias Wayne, tithe paid.
1839 — Thomas Wayne, twofold payment in fire and steel.
The ink blurred before his eyes. His ancestors, marked one after another like cattle for slaughter. Wayne blood poured into the soil of Gotham by their own consent, traded like currency.
Jonathan slammed the ledger shut so hard the dust jumped. His breath was ragged, fury gnawing at him from the inside out.
"They signed us into this," he hissed. "Waynes weren't victims they were founders of this curse."
Scrap flinched but stepped closer, his voice low. "Not you though. You didn't sign nothin'. You're not one of them."
But Jonathan's hands shook as he gripped the edges of the book. "Blood doesn't care what I signed."
Isadora came forward, calm where Jonathan burned. She placed her hand over his. Her voice was steady, iron through velvet. "Then write your own line, Jonathan. If this ledger is chains, then you are the one who can break them. You are not your ancestors."
He met her eyes, and for a moment, the rage receded.
Crane was scanning the shelves, lantern light flickering across his scarred face. "If this gets out, the whole city will know its nobility were nothing but debt-slaves to a ritual. The courthouse, the banks, the families they're all tainted."
Scrap's grin returned, sharper this time. "So we spread it. We make sure every corner knows what the ledgers say. Not just whispers, but proof. The Owe only lives in shadows. Drag it out into the street, it dies like a rat."
Jonathan opened the ledger again, slower this time, forcing himself to look. He found the most recent entries, each ink stroke still wet-black.
1898 — Debt claimed. Infant marked, family line continued.
1903 — Debt satisfied. Blood taken, ledger sealed.
And there, the latest, written with the same meticulous hand:
1920 — Pending. A Wayne yet to be named.
The lantern guttered. Jonathan's skin went cold. The ledger wasn't just history it was prophecy. The book had already written him into its pages, waiting only for the date of his tithe.
He staggered back, bile in his throat. "It's me. I'm the payment. They've been waiting for me."
Silence gripped the chamber. The storm groaned above, thunder rattling the foundations of the church.
Isadora's voice cut through the darkness, firm and unyielding. "Then they'll wait forever. Because you will not be the end of this line you will be the one to end theirs."
Scrap slammed his fist against the wall, sending dust raining down. "Then we burn it. All of it. Every book, every word. Let's see if their gods of ash and blood can survive with no scripture to feed on."
Crane's voice was flat, but there was something like awe buried in it. "If the ledger burns, so does Gotham. Vale said as much. The Owe tied this city's bones to these records. Destroy them recklessly, and you might not like what rises in the ashes."
Jonathan looked at the shelves, endless rows of names and debts. His family's sins stared back at him, each line an accusation carved in ink. Rage boiled, yes but beneath it, a clarity
"We don't burn them. Not yet," Jonathan said, voice steadier now. "We use them. Proof. Ammunition. The Owe's own words will damn them."
He pressed his palm against the ledger's page, over the words that bound him to payment. For a moment, the ink seemed to pulse beneath his hand, as if mocking his defiance.
"Gotham was built on blood," Jonathan whispered. "But it won't be mine that seals it again."