Lord Anghau smiled and clapped his hands together, “Very good, Mr. Bell! Now, in exchange, I’ll tell you whatever you need to know to help your Ms. Evans.”

Henry opened his mouth to thank Lord Anghau again, surprised that his meager offering was enough for the sídhe who could get anything from anyone, but he caught himself at the last moment, remembering Lord Anghau’s warning. Instead, he asked, “Could you explain what exactly your business does? I know the stories, of course, but how much of those are true?”

“Truth is subjective. If you were to ask any other sídhe, they would tell you the Uí Anghau are wicked usurers who buy your life and soul in exchange for petty, superficial things like wealth or power. They’d say a contract with the Uí Anghau is never worth the price,” Lord Anghau said with a wicked grin. “But our truth is that while we do still make some…high interest deals, there’s more that we offer and good that we do. And even we can be generous.”

Lord Anghau thought for a moment, tapping his fingers against his desk. “Ah, where to begin…? We make contracts, obviously. That much, I’m sure you gathered. We have five negotiators on staff, each possessing the family magic. I include myself in that number, though usually, I only oversee major deals and high-profile clients.”

Before Henry could ask why he, then, was deemed important enough to meet with the Lord of the House, Lord Anghau hurried to keep speaking. “We’ll agree to almost any bargain within our power, and within the confines of the law,” he said. “Once I’ve approved a potential client, the assigned negotiator is given total discretion. Money, power, beauty, youth, sometimes even a taste of magic — if a client’s payment is satisfactory, the negotiator can give it. Of course, this means that some deals offer more gracious terms than others. We are sídhe, after all. We reward generosity and humility, punish arrogance and rudeness.”

“You said ‘within the confines of the law’. Is buying a person’s soul legal now?”  Henry asked, bluntly.

Instead of being offended, Lord Anghau only laughed. “It always has been — for us, at least. The Uí Anghau have been making these deals for longer than Tamarley has existed; both human and sídhe law carved out exceptions for us. As long as it’s agreed to in a valid contract, we can do what we will with our clients.” Lord Anghau paused to let Henry process that, watching his face closely for his reaction. Henry kept his expression carefully neutral, and Lord Anghau continued, “We don’t take lives often. We keep a limited number of those deals open at any time, and I’ve laid down rules our negotiators have to follow in executing them.”

“What are the rules?”

Lord Anghau held a finger up, counting them off as he explained. “One, all major contracts must be in writing. This includes contracts with high dollar values, contracts involving any sort of magical exchange, or any contracts that will result in permanent change to the client. Simple deals like the one you and I just made can be oral. All written contracts are stored in our archives, which I’ll be happy to take you to once I’ve answered your questions. We can check Hathaway’s record there, if he really has one.”

Henry nodded.

Lord Anghau added another finger, “Two, the client must be the one to bring up the ultimate barter. Our negotiators can’t bring up a death deal at any point in the negotiation process. The client must ask to trade away their life.”

“Do they really do that?” Henry asked.

“More often than you’d think, especially if they negotiate a longer term. Your greatest wish granted in exchange for your death in twenty years — that’s a long, long time for you to be able to live and enjoy yourself, and it’s not as if you’re guaranteed to live longer even without our interference.”

“I suppose…”

Lord Anghau smirked. “Three, the contract must contain a buy-out clause. The client must have a way to end the agreement early. The price to do so is often steep, but…” Lord Anghau shrugged. “Their mistakes aren’t our concern. Four, no trading other people’s lives, and no changing others’ emotions. Five, if the client does offer their life, they get to determine the method of death.”

“The cú sídhe don’t carry out the contracts?”

Lord Anghau shook his head. “Nowadays, the hounds are only used when a client breaches the terms of the agreement or tries to flee.”

Henry hesitated, then asked, “Can I ask something that might offend you?”

“I made a deal with you, Mr. Bell. You can ask me anything.”

Not feeling particularly reassured by that answer, Henry cleared his throat. “I can understand coveting a person’s secrets, or wanting something nobody else has, but what do you gain from a client’s death? Surely it would make sounder business sense to keep them alive so they can continue to make deals with you.”

“There’s some truth to that. Humans are rarely satisfied after just one deal with the Uí Anghau,” Lord Anghau agreed. He idly kicked his heels as he spoke, still sitting on top of his desk. “How much do you know about sídhe magic?”

“Little, I’m afraid. I know that every sídhe’s magic is different, and that it varies by family.”

“And I assume you’ve heard the rumors about this house? About me and certain deals I may have made?”

“You’re referring to your deal with death?”

Lord Anghau inclined his head in acknowledgment. “Does that frighten you?”

“No,” Henry said, “But I’m also not certain I believe it.”

“You should,” Lord Anghau said with a wicked grin, revealing the tips of sharp canines. “It’s true that the power of the Uí Anghau comes from death — not from dying, not from the dead, but from Death, the entity. You could call Death a third party beneficiary to our contracts. There is power in life and power in death, and at the end of our contracts, we gain a life’s power by offering it to Death.”

“So when you take a life at the end of a contract, you get magic?”

“Precisely.”

“What if your client is human? They wouldn’t have any power for you.”

Lord Anghau shook his head. “It’s not about the magic. Well…it could be about the magic. When I say there’s power in life, I refer to a power of potential, like the potential of a marble sitting at the top of a hill. Death assesses the life ahead of the victim as well as the life they’re leaving behind. It looks at the number of people who love them or hate them, the impact they’ve had or could still have on the world, and it pays the negotiator accordingly. I get a cut of each deal, of course.”

Henry struggled to wrap his mind around this. When questioning the aes sídhe, he had learned that getting strange, nebulous explanations was always a risk. “Is age ever a factor? Would a teenager, for example, have more power than an older adult?”

Lord Anghau shrugged. “They could; it can be. A person limits their potential by the choices they make; it stands to reason, then, that youth who have the whole world open to them yield a great deal of power. But for some, potential only increases as they age. It’s about the way a person lives their life. Only Death knows people’s fates, how they’d move through the world if given a natural progression toward their deaths. We Anghau have gotten good at guessing potential, though.” Lord Anghau smiled sweetly at Henry. “You, Mr. Bell, have a great deal of it.”

“Ah. Thank you…?” Henry said, feeling suddenly like prey. He cleared his throat again. “Where do souls fit into all of this?”

“Souls?”

“The stories say you’ll take a person’s soul as compensation for a contract. But if it’s only their death that’s important, what happens to…whatever’s leftover?”

“Ah,” Lord Anghau said wistfully. “The concept of souls is purely human. I don’t know what happens to my clients after they die, nor do I particularly care. They’re not tortured for all eternity, or whatever the stories may have you believe. Theoretically, there’s nothing stopping them from crossing over to whatever afterlife they believe in.”

“I see,” Henry said, mulling on that a moment before changing directions entirely. “Are there more cú sídhe than just Etta?”

Lord Anghau barely blinked at the change. “Yes, each of the negotiators has a hound of their own.”

“Is it true the hounds can cross between cities on holy days?”

“My, you really have done your research. It’s partially true. As I said before, the cú sídhe draw on our magic, so they’d need someone from the family with them in order to do it. But yes, on certain days of the year, a hound and its master is able to cross between cities at whim. Any other day, they’d need to pass through Customs like anyone else.”

“Certain days of the year…like this weekend?” Henry asked.

“Ah,” Lord Anghau said. “Yes, the hounds should be able to cross at any time during the Festival of Hares. I still think it’s unlikely your Mr. Hathaway died by the cú sídhe, but I see where you’re coming from.”

Henry sat back, thinking. Some things had begun to make sense, but there were still pieces he didn’t understand. He stayed silent for so long that Lord Anghau finally asked, “Did you have any other questions?”

“One more. Why did you offer to speak with me personally?”

Lord Anghau tutted. “I hope you’re not taking advantage of my generous deal, Mr. Bell. I promised answers related to my business only. You’ll have to give me another secret if you want anything else. So? Care to make a second deal?”

Of all the answers Lord Anghau could have given, that one unnerved Henry the most. Quickly, he shook his head. “Perhaps not. I suppose I’ll just have to sit in my curiosity.”

“Suit yourself,” Lord Anghau said with a shrug. “Come with me, then. We can find out once and for all if Arthur Hathaway made a deal with the Uí Anghau in the archives.”

Lord Anghau led Henry out of his office, locking the door behind them, and back to the elevator. He stood much closer to Henry on the way down than he had on the way up, nearly pressed against his side. With him so close, Henry caught another whiff of that faint rose smell from the lobby, now paired with Lord Anghau’s soft cologne.

Suddenly, Henry gasped.

When Lord Anghau looked at him, Henry found he was close enough to make out every individual freckle on the man’s pale face. He cleared his throat and looked away again.

“Something wrong, Henry?” the sídhe asked.

Henry quickly shook his head. “Not at all. I just remembered something important.”

Despite his obvious curiosity, Lord Anghau chose not to ask, instead letting comfortable silence fill the space as the elevator carried them past the first floor and down to the basement. There, he led Henry out and along another hallway, finally stopping at an old safe door that the sídhe unbolted and opened with a flare of golden magic. Surprisingly cool air spilled out, the safe door sliding magically open to reveal rows upon rows of shelves and identical file cabinets.