Chapter 1
I've just stolen a week's worth of barley when the Collectors come.
The bag of toasted grains is still warm against my chest, tucked beneath my threadbare coat as I duck through the narrow passages of the Lower Wards. The scent of food makes my stomach cramp with anticipation. Three days since my last proper meal—dangerously long in the Crown City’s unforgiving underbelly. I'm getting sloppy from hunger, and sloppiness gets people killed.
Behind me, the grocer's shouts have already faded. Small victory.
I press myself against the crumbling brick wall as a pair of city guards lumber past the alley's entrance. They don't glance my way, too preoccupied with their own conversations to notice another shadow in the Lower Wards. Just as well. I've already spent two nights in the holding cells this month, and the guards aren't known for their gentle handling of repeat offenders.
The warning bells begin as I'm scaling the rusted drainpipe to my hideout.
Three long, resonant tones that echo through the fog-chokedstreets. My fingers freeze on the cold metal. Three bells. That's not the city watch. That's the Collectors.
I curse, my breath forming a small cloud in the damp air.
I should run. Anyone with sense is already running. But I'm halfway up the wall, and my meager possessions—a copper blade, a change of clothes, a locket with an unfamiliar face inside—are in the alcove above. Three more seconds to climb, five to grab my things, and I'll be gone.
The drainpipe creaks under my weight. I haul myself over the ledge and onto the small platform I've claimed as home for the past eighteen nights. Not a record, but longer than most places.
Just as I'm shoving the barley sack into my worn satchel, I hear them: the heavy, methodical thud of armored boots. The crackle of lightning spears charging, the sound like the sky before a storm. The Collectors don't hurry. They don't need to. They have numbers and weapons and the weight of imperial authority behind each step.
I peer over the edge. Six of them move in formation down the narrow street below. Their armor gleams obsidian black even in the dismal light, their helmets crafted to resemble dragon maws, breath-tubes snaking down into the metal collars at their necks.
One of them carries a list. Another holds a contraption I've only glimpsed from afar: a device with a shivering glass dial that supposedly measures for remnants of the old fae gifts, verifying that no dangerous spark lingers in our blood. I've never met a soul who admits to having any. Magic and immortality were supposed to be burned out of us centuries ago—a sacrifice imposed after the Hollow Wars, when the provincial fae courts of Thalyris, unwilling to let any rival grow stronger, turned their power upon each other and brought themselves to ruin, leaving a single throne to rise from the ashes. Yet the empire never stops checking us.
The Collectors pause beneath my hideout. My breath catches.
“Quadrant four, tier twelve,” announces the one with the list, her voice distorted by the helmet. “Commence the sweep.”
I need to move now. I shoulder my satchel, careful not to letthe barley spill, and edge along the platform toward the adjacent roof. It's a longer jump than I'd like, but I've mapped every escape route from every perch in this district. Four feet of open air, then a rolling landing on the slanted tiles of the tannery roof.
I tense my muscles, preparing to leap—and that's when I see the seventh Collector. The one who had circled around and climbed the opposite building. The one who stands on the very roof I'd planned to escape to.
Our eyes meet through the slits in his helmet. He raises his spear.
“Target acquired,” he calls down. “Female, approximately twenty years. Matches description for theft suspect 37-B.”
I back away. Plan B, then. Down the rear drainpipe, through the butcher's alley, and into the sewers.
But as I spin, my foot catches on a loose tile. My ankle rolls. Pain shoots up my leg as I stumble forward, my momentum carrying me over the edge—not where I intended—and into open air.
I crash through a canopy of rotted fabric, the thin material doing nothing to break my fall. I hit the ground hard, the impact knocking the breath from my lungs. Pain radiates through my shoulder and hip. The world spins, but I force myself to move.
“Stay down!” someone shouts.
I don't listen. I never listen. I stagger to my feet, ignoring the shooting pain, and lunge for the nearest alley entrance.
Something strikes me between the shoulder blades. My muscles seize. Lightning erupts through my veins, my vision whiting out as my body convulses. The spear's charge—nonlethal but excruciating.
I collapse, my cheek pressed against the cold cobblestones. Through blurred vision, I see armored feet approaching. My fingers tingle with aftershocks as I try to push myself up. Nothing responds. The barley is scattered around me, already being trampled into the muck.
“Veyra Rhaevorn,” says the Collector with the list. She stoopsdown, her dragon-maw helmet inches from my face. The eye slits reveal nothing but darkness. “Age twenty-one. Six prior offenses. Orphaned. No family connections. No guild affiliations.” She pauses, then adds with cold satisfaction: “Eligible.”
The word twists like a knife. Eligible means purely mortal: fae who bleed, break, and die like common animals.
I try to spit at her, but my mouth doesn't work yet. Another Collector grabs my arms, hauling me upright. My legs dangle uselessly as they begin to carry me away.
“No,” I manage to croak. “I'm not?—”
