A Pact Without Witnesses

They gave her a gallery with no clerks. The envoy came in with the evening water, barefoot, salt dried white at the ankles, clothes that had once been a uniform and were now only the idea of one.

“I am not allowed to speak the terms,” he said. His voice was ordinary, which was worse. “And you are not allowed to write them down. That is the pact. It keeps itself.”

Sol set the pen aside. “Then how do we know what we have agreed?”

“By what the tide does not take tomorrow.” He looked at her hands, not her face. “Last time, someone wrote a copy for the archive. The archive is under water. The someone is not.”

They stood a long time with the agreement between them, unspoken. When he left, a ring of salt remained where he had been, perfect as a seal, and Sol did not step inside it.