Page 55 of A House of Gold
“Everyone has secrets. But you’re not hiding them. You’re just... carrying them.” He studies me for another moment, then seems to decide. “Come on. I’ll show you the library. You look like you could use somewhere quiet to think.”
“How do you know I want?—”
“Because everyone who comes here wants somewhere that isn’t here.” He starts walking, and after a moment, I follow. “And the library is the closest thing this place has to a sanctuary. Even Croesus doesn’t disturb people there. Much.”
We walk in silence for a while. The corridors shift around us; left becomes right, straight becomes curved, but Nat navigates without hesitation. Like he’s memorized not the paths themselves but the logic of how they change.
“How long have you been here?” I ask finally.
“Hundred years. Give or take.” He says it as if it’s nothing. Like a century of servitude is just a footnote in his biography.
“A hundred years.” I try to wrap my head around it. “That’s...that’s longer than most people live.”
“Yeah, well. The contract was clear. Service until the debt is paid.” He glances back at me. “I knew what I was signing. Unlike most people who walk through Croesus’s doors, I actually read the fine print.”
“And you still signed.”
“Had my reasons.” His voice goes flat. “They seemed important at the time.”
I want to ask what those reasons were. Want to know what could be worth a century of your life? But the set of his shoulders tells me the subject is closed, and I won’t push. Not yet.
We reach a set of double doors carved with images I can’t quite make out. They shift and change like the house itself, showing different scenes depending on how you look at them. Nat pushes them open without ceremony.
The library beyond is vast. I’d glimpsed it during my short tour with Auric, but now, inside, it’s incredible.
Shelves stretch up into darkness that the golden light can’t penetrate, filled with books and scrolls and tablets in any way the written word can take form. The air smells of old paper and ritual magic. The ozone-adjacent scent I get when I strip sins.
There are reading nooks scattered throughout, deep chairs, cushioned benches, tables with lamps that glow without flame. A few other people occupy them, hunched over texts, scribbling notes, lost in research. They don’t look up as we enter.
“Holy shit,” I breathe.
“Yeah. That’s the usual reaction.” Nat walks deeper into the space, and I follow like a kid in a candy store. “Croesus has been collecting for three thousand years. Books, scrolls, tablets, hard drives. If it contains knowledge and if he can gain it, it ends up here.” He gestures to the section on our right. “That’s the mythology section. Greek, Roman, Norse, Egyptian, pretty much every pantheon humans have ever worshipped. Over there”--he points left– “is practical magic. Spells, rituals, wards, curses. If you want to learn how to do something supernatural, it’s probably in there somewhere.”
“And that?” I nod toward a section in the back, cordoned off with golden chains.
“Forbidden knowledge. Dangerous texts. Things Croesus doesn’t want people reading without supervision.” Nat’s expression darkens. “Don’t go near that section unless you want to answer some very uncomfortable questions about why you’re interested.”
Good to know. “Auric told me it was open to use, but it still feels like I shouldn’t be here?”
“Technically, you need Croesus’s permission. But,“ He gives me a knowing look. “If you’re discreet about it, no one’s going to stop you. Most of the people who work here spend half their time in the library, anyway. It’s the one place we can pretend we’re doing something useful instead of just...existing.”
There’s bitterness in his voice. A century’s worth of it, crystallized into a single sentence.
“You hate it here,” I say quietly.
“I tolerate it here. There’s a difference.” He moves toward one of the reading nooks and settles into a chair. “Hate requires energy I stopped having about fifty years ago. Now I just... endure. Count down the days until my contract expires. Try not to think too hard about what I’ve become.”
I sit in the chair across from him. The leather is soft, worn smooth by countless other readers. “How much time do you have left?”
“Eight years. Four months. Seventeen days.” He says it without hesitation. “Not that I’m counting.”
“What happens when the contract ends?”
“I leave. Walk out the front door and never look back.” He stares at the shelves in front of us, but I don’t think he’s really seeing them. “Go back to the world and figure out who I am when I’m not defined by the deal I made in 1924.”
1924. Jesus. He’s been here since the twenties. Since before the Great Depression, before World War II, before everything that’s shaped the modern world. He was here when my mother was born. When I was born.
“Do you regret it?” I ask. “The deal?”
