He pauses, and something gentler flickers behind his eyes before he smothers it.
“Relax. It takes more than Kian’s bottom-feeders to put me down. I’m remarkably difficult to kill. Just ask the last three assassins who tried.”
I want to believe him. Need to. But Raze’s death still haunts my dreams, and I didn’t even witness it. My mind crafts new horrors each night—the hybrid with its eight glowing eyes, tearing into him like paper. Sometimes I hear bones snap, see flesh tear. Worst are the nights where he survives the attack, poison crawling through his veins, eating him from the inside while he struggles for each breath.
Children’s laughter cuts through the static in my skull, startling in its purity.
In the hollow between buildings, a group of kids clusters around a makeshift toy, a bent scrap of metal and wire, enchanted to hover briefly when fed with blood. They take turns pressing fingertips to its surface, each drop earning precious seconds of flight. Theirclothes hang in tatters off thin limbs, but their eyes shine with wonder as the toy jerks skyward.
I stop cold, memories flooding back unbidden. My childhood bedroom, with its climate-controlled air and automated lighting. The endless parade of expensive toys: junior alchemy sets, practice rubies set in delicate chains, enchanted mirrors that showed you wearing any outfit you imagined.
I convinced myself I was lonely then. Complained about the pressure, cried when the lights glitched.
“What’s wrong?” Kane’s watching me too closely now.
“Everything,” I say, voice breaking on the word. “I used to think I had it hard—the pressure, the expectations, the constant drive for perfection. But look at them.” I nod toward the kids, who’ve started arguing over whose turn it is. “They’re bleeding just to have what I took for granted. And I spent my childhood complaining about crystal plates and custom-fitted uniforms.”
“Hey,” Kane’s expression shifts, something almost gentle crossing his features. “Pain isn’t a competition. What you felt back then was still real. Doesn’t stop being valid just because someone else was hurting worse.”
“Doesn’t it?” My eyes stay locked on the oldest child, maybe ten, gently guiding the younger ones to share what little time they get with the toy. “Everything I thought I knew about this city, about who I was inside it, it was all a lie.”
“And now you see it,” Kane says quietly. “That’s more than most ever get. Question is, what are you going to do with that?”
The kids laugh again, bright and unguarded, and the sound echoes inside me; a bruise I’ll carry for the rest of my life.
“I’m not sure yet,” I murmur. “But I won’t forget this. Any of it.”
“Don’t pity them,” he says, nudging me forward again, deeper into the shadowed web of alleys. “They don’t need it. What they need is change. Real change, not more empty promises from above.”
The alleys uncoil intoa stretch of polished stone, unnervingly pristine after the corrosion and chaos behind us, the floor gleaming beneath the surveillance glow while crystalline spires rise above, angular and unblinking, their cores pulsing with a soft red cadence. No one moves, silence swelling until the transition itself feels like a threat made flesh.
Wards hum with latent violence, refracting light through their translucent skin into warped, jagged patterns. Overhead, holographic alerts flicker in steady rotation, each one promising swift correction for unverified movement.
“Wait.” Kane’s hand grips my arm before I breach the light. “Only way through is with high-tier clearance or registered transport authorization. I’ve run supply routes before. Sometimes . . .” His jaw tightens, lips thinning. “Sometimes it was disposal work. Delivering what Kian didn’t want found.”
A slow chill takes root in my spine, crawling vertebrae by vertebrae. Kane doesn’t pause.
“But we hardly pass for sanctioned Blackwood couriers anymore. With these clothes, at this time of night, we’re walking red flags. If they don’t shoot first, they’ll tear the papers apart for a reason to.”
I halt mid-step, unease crystallizing into certainty. “Don’t you think it’s off?”
He frowns. “What do you mean?”
“Smoke was right behind us at the tram. They had eyes in every district, swarming the exits—and now?” I gesture at the stillness. “No patrols. No drones. Not even a whisper of pursuit.”
Kane exhales, forced and flat. “Maybe we slipped them, or they lost the trail.”
“Or it’s a setup.” The conclusion comes unfiltered. “They know we have no way out.”
“Aria—”
“Alexander monitors every checkpoint in the city,” I say, the words punching through the quiet. “You think Kian hasn’t gone to him yet? Told him exactly where to corner us?”
“Let’s not dissect it now,” Kane mutters. “We focus on getting through, one obstacle at a time.” But his fingers twitch against his thigh, and that flicker of hesitation in his eyes betrays the calculation already running behind them. “Check the bag. If Margaux planned this properly, she would’ve prepared for this.”
I dig through the pack until my fingers brush something smooth and dense, parchment reserved for those with power to burn.
“These?” I pull out a sheaf of documents, the crimson Blackwood seal glinting mockingly in the wan light.
