It began to count, and it had a great many fingers.
"I will explain it to you in detail, the same way I do for every curse, as words said in this realm are engraved into the brain, teaching it how to manifest and control the power. It would be like a baby developing new neural connections to send signals to move his legs for the first time."
"Go on," Alphonse responded.
"Three marks. One in each palm and one under the eyes. From the right hand you will draw the Hilt, an iron gavel that cannot be broken and cannot be lost. From the left you will draw the Grimoire, a book of blank pages that writes itself. It will record everything that happens in front of you and it will stand between you and what is coming at you. It is the source of truth, and it does not make mistakes. And for the third mark, the one under your eyes, the Clerk. A small stone raven with a blindfold on. He goes where he likes and he answers to nobody, including you. He is the witness."
"What do they do."
"They do what you told me. All of it, exactly as you put it, and I did not have to change a single clause."
It began to walk along the front of the dock, slowly, hands behind its back.
"Before the list, the mechanism. It is the same every time."
The gavel came up off the rail and hung in the air. The Grimoire opened beside it. The raven sat under them both, entirely stone, wings folded, feet fused, a thick grey band across its eyes.
"The gavel decides nothing. The bird decides nothing. The Grimoire decides, and it has five forms, it tells you which one it is in by its color. That is the whole of the system. When the color changes, the other two change with it, and they change because it changed. Never the other way round."
It stopped walking.
"Two things follow every time. One piece of stone breaks off the bird. And you put the hilt flat on the open page and unsheathe it, the way you draw a blade, and what comes out is whatever that color allows and nothing else."
It looked up at the carved bird.
"He is stone all over. His ears. His feet. His beak. His wings. And the band on his eyes." One finger for each. "Five colors. Five pieces. Each color frees exactly one."
"Two of the colors you may call whenever you want, against anyone. The other three the grimoire will not give you until it has recorded what a man did. It records by watching. You look at him in the first color, the grimoire writes down what it finds, and when it is heavy enough the other colors become available to you."
"The grimoire decides when it's heavy enough."
"The grimoire decides. It does not consult you and you cannot argue with it." A pause. "You will find that a great convenience."
"First. The white grimoire. The Blind Judge."
The Grimoire went white, binding and edges and all, until it was hard to look at directly.
"No condition. Take it whenever you want."
The stone flaked off the raven's ears and fell.
"His ears unstone. The bird detects lies. Objectively, with no exception."
It put the hilt on the page and unsheathed a thin chain with a weight on the end.
"The hilt becomes a divination pendulum. Give it a statement of fact that has only yes or no for an answer. Clockwise is true. Counter-clockwise is false. It answers grounded facts only, not absolutes. Ask it whether a man is good and it will hang there dead."
"And the cost."
"Blood, scaled to how well the thing was hidden. Confirming which road a thief took costs you nothing. Locating the guarded hideout of a king will open your eyes and your nose and your mouth. Too much blood paid and you die. Do not ask more than you can carry."
"Second. The green grimoire. The Holy Judge."
The white sank out of the cover and green came up through it.
"No condition. The other free one. Though it costs more than the rest in terms of energy. Healing is more expensive than hurting."
The stone across the raven's back split and folded open. What came out was soft.
"His wings unstone. The feathers he sheds close wounds."
It put the hilt on the page and unsheathed a plain chain with nothing on the end.
"The hilt becomes a third arm. It reaches, takes hold, and pulls."
"Is there any drawback to the green grimoire?"
"There is none." It looked up at him. "You said mercy was not a finding. It is the one clause with no gate on it, and you put it there."
"Third. The black grimoire. The Iron Judge."
The green went out of it and the grimoire turned black.
"Shut. The grimoire can only become black if it deems the sins worthy of such punishment."
The stone around the raven's feet shattered. What came out were talons, thin and metallic.
"His feet unstone. He stops being an observer and becomes a fighting summon. He slashes, grapples, and pins."
It put the hilt on the page and unsheathed a heavy chain with an iron ball on the end.
"The hilt becomes a chain with a manacle on the end of it. It breaks guards. It wraps a man shoulder to hip and holds him there."
"And the limit."
"Your own strength. The stronger you are, the stronger both of them are."
"Fourth. The yellow grimoire. The Hollow Judge."
The black ran off it like water and left yellow behind.
"Shut. Same logic with the black grimoire."
The stone came off the raven's beak. What was left was a hole.
"His beak unstones. He swallows one object. A blade, a rod, a charm, the brace a man wears to stand upright. It appears in the grimoire as an ink drawing."
The pages turned by themselves and stopped. There was a rod on one of them, flat and black, drawn like an illustration in a ledger.
"It stays a drawing for one day. Leave it, and the page burns and the object goes back to its owner. Tear the page out, and you hold the object yourself for one minute. Then he gets it back."
It put the hilt on the page. The iron ball came apart down the middle. Inside it was an open shackle.
"The hilt is now attached to a chain with a shackle at the end. You throw it. One throw for every time you draw it. If it hits a man's limb, it seals it, if it locks into a cursed human's arm, resonance will no longer flow into it, if it locks into their heads, resonance does not flow into their brain and their power is completely sealed, it can seal eldritch holders too. After that then the shackle is gone and you have the manacle back, it's a one time use once the grimoire turns yellow."
"Fifth. The red grimoire. The Wrathful Judge."
The devil's voice did not change at all.
The green went out of the cover from the spine outward, and what replaced it was red.
"Shut differently and much more tightly. This one does not open because a man is guilty. The grimoire will only turn this color when what is written on those pages is a death penalty, and the record carries no other reading."
It put the hilt on the page and unsheathed a sword. It was enormous and flat across the end instead of pointed.
"The hilt becomes this. An anti power sword. It does one thing. Whatever it touches loses everything that is not flesh. It cancels all aura, whether the man is a cursed human or an Eldritch holder."
Alphonse was surprised because he understood how strong such a power was.
"So it's like an anti magic sword?" he asked.
"Exactly."
The band of stone across the raven's eyes cracked from edge to edge. It did not fall. It held, split, and behind the seam there was light.
"The blindfold unstones. He stops being the witness. He fires from his eyes, from anywhere on the field, and he does not stop until it is finished."
The crack closed. The stone was whole again. The red drained out of the grimoire and it was blank and colorless in the air.
It stepped back from the rail, and the three things went out.
"That is the instrument. Five colors. Two you may call. Three the grimoire must hand you. And if you ever want to know what you are permitted to do, look at your own left hand and you will already know."
Then it came forward again and stopped directly in front of him, and it was so short that it had to look up.
"A power that is only as strong as the evil it fights. That is your power, Alphonse Graves. The power you will live with, and the one you were cursed with."
"I see no curse. You simply granted me the power to make justice."
"I'm glad you think it is no curse."
"Are we done here?"
"Yes. You may leave, Alphonse Graves."
The place shifted and a door opened behind him.
Alphonse turned, opened the door, and while stepping into the other side, he turned one last time.
"Will I regret taking this power," he asked.
"You will regret it so much you will wish you were never born, Alphonse Graves." The devil laughed hysterically after saying it, amused by the words.
The devil, never lies.
He smiled, and closed the door behind him.
THE ROOF OF THE AUCTION HOUSE
No time had passed.
Thaumiel had not finished turning away. Lilly had not moved. The shouting from the street was at exactly the pitch it had been at, and the wind was doing the same thing to the same corner of Samuelle's coat.
Alphonse was still standing where he had been standing.
Then the marks came in.
They came up out of the skin rather than onto it, and they hurt in a way he did not have a word for. Both palms first, a circle in each. Then his face, under the eyes, and that one he felt spreading, thin and jagged and going out sideways across the bone like something cracking in cold weather.
He put a hand to his cheek and it came away without blood.
Samuelle's hand went into the satchel.
"No," Thaumiel said.
He had turned all the way round. Whatever had been on his face when he walked away was gone and something else was there instead, and it was not triumph. It was the look of a man watching a horse come in.
"Well," Thaumiel said. "Look at that."
Samuelle did not take his hand out of the satchel.
"I said no."
"He is cursed."
"I know what he is. Put it away."
Samuelle put it away.
Thaumiel came back across the roof, and he was smiling, the widest he had smiled all day.
"I knew it. I did tell you. You had it in you, Judge, and you found it because I said the thing nobody had ever said to you." He was delighted, and he was completely sincere. "How does it feel."
Alphonse did not answer him.
He put out his left hand and the grimoire was suddenly floating above it.
The stone raven emerged from above him immediately after.
Thaumiel looked at both the grimoire and the raven for about four seconds.
"That is a very unique power," he said. "Congratulations. But would you be kind enough to explain how this works?"
Alphonse looked down at the book.
The binding went white.
The stone flaked off the raven's ears and fell in pieces, as it flew beside Thaumiel's shoulders, he looked at it with amusement.
"You know I'm not following what's happening here right?"
"State your name."
"Oh… It's Thaumiel."
"Is that the name you were born with."
"I don't know."
The pendulum did not move. The bird did not move.
"On this day," Alphonse said, "in the vault of this building, a dozen crown officers were killed. Did you order that."
"I did."
"Did you know they would be killed when you gave the order."
"Yes."
"At ten o'clock this morning eleven men entered the royal palace through the floor and took the king's wife, who is nineteen years old and seven months pregnant, and held her as hostage. Was that done at your instruction."
"It was."
"On the fourth of April, in his own chambers, the Supreme Judge of this kingdom was murdered."
Alphonse's voice did not change at all.
"Did you kill him."
"Yes," Thaumiel said.
The bird did not move. It sat with its head tipped and its ears bare and heard four true things in a row.
And the pages of the book filled up.
Alphonse saw it happen out of the corner of his eye, the writing running across the paper in a hand that was not his, faster than any clerk had ever taken anything down, everything that had been said on that roof going into it word for word.
He watched the page fill.
And he waited for the white to go out of the binding.
It did not.
He looked at it directly. It was white. It was as white as it had been when he called it.
"Turn," he said.
Nothing.
"Turn red."
Thaumiel's head tilted very slightly.
Alphonse put his hand flat on the page. He drew the gavel across it and pulled, and what came out was the pendulum, because that was the only thing that was there to come out.
He did it a second time and got the same thing.
The raven had not moved.
"He has confessed." He said it to the book. He was aware, distantly, that he was saying it to a book. "He has confessed to counts of murder, in his own words, and the witness has confirmed every answer, and it is all written down in front of me. Turn."
The book stayed white.
"TURN." He screamed it, starting to lose control over his emotions.
"Oh, I see, so something about your power must happen after you prove a subject is guilty. The devil's curses really are interesting," Thaumiel said.
Thaumiel put both hands up, palms out, and laughed. "It seems it's not working the way it's supposed to, justice man."
Alphonse stood on the roof with the book open beside him and the writing still going across the page, and he heard his own voice, from somewhere white, from about a minute ago.
Guilt is found by a process that does not belong to anybody, on evidence that can be examined by people who disagree.
One man deciding alone is not law. It is appetite with a robe on.
He had said it fast. He had been proud of it.
He looked at the page.
The page was full of everything Thaumiel had just confessed to, in perfect order, admissible, corroborated, complete.
"WHY!" he said. "WHY IS IT NOT WORKING!"
"That is beautiful," Thaumiel said. "You truly are pathetic, Alphonse Graves."
Alphonse did not look up.
"Judge." Thaumiel waited until he did. "The devil gave you what you wanted, a curse to live with."
He said it warmly, and he meant every word, and then he turned away.
"Lilly."
She drew out a pre-drawn scroll and spread it in front of her, it was full of circles and glyphs that seemed to Alphonse like an ancient language paired with weird drawings.
She then bent towards it. Alphonse watched her do it because there was nothing else to look at and nothing else he could do with his eyes. She pressed her palms on one of the circles, it was dead in the middle.
It came up off the page grey and white and got larger on the way, and by the time it stopped rising it was a shape hanging a foot above the roof with its edges still settling, and it made no noise whatsoever, a white square floating carpet.
Samuelle stepped onto it.
Thaumiel picked the child up under the arms and put her on it and got up after her.
Then he looked back.
"It really is a good power," Thaumiel said. "Come look for me me when you find out who you truly are."
The thing lifted.
It went out over the edge of the roof and over the street and over the four thousand people who were still shouting in it, and it did not hurry, and nobody down there looked up because nobody down there was looking at anything but the doors.
Alphonse stood where he was until it was too small to see. He was frozen in place, mouth open. He dispelled his power, and his eyes went blank as did his mind, and to him it felt like he had been betrayed by himself.