“Two more stops.”
She closed her eyes. Tried to breathe through the pull. It wasn’t pain exactly, more like being caught in a current, her whole body leaning toward something she couldn’t see.
Victor’s hand found hers. The soul bond flared silver at the contact, pushing back against the golden chains. It helped. Not enough, but some.
“I’ve got you,” he said.
The train moved on.
The Crimson Districtwas nothing like the plaza where they’d arrived.
Gone were the festival banners and food vendors. Here, the buildings leaned against each other like drunks, facades crumbling, windows dark or boarded. Graffiti covered every surface: Abyssal script, some of it glowing faintly, some of it seeming to move when she wasn’t looking directly at it.
The crowd was different too. Harder. Visible weapons. Scars worn like jewelry. Eyes that tracked Victor and Ava with open calculation.
The chains made her a target. She understood that now. In Hell, ownership was visible, and she was marked as belonging to a Duke who hadn’t formally claimed her yet. Limbo. Contested territory.
They’d barely made it half a block when someone stepped into their path.
The demon was massive: seven feet of scarred muscle, teeth filed to points, wearing armor that looked like it had been welded together from scrap metal. His eyes fixed on the chains glowing beneath Ava’s skin.
“Marchosias’s mark,” he said. “But walking free. Not processed yet.” His grin turned feral. “Means you’re still?—”
Victor moved.
One moment he was beside her. The next, he had the demon by the throat, lifted off his feet, slammed against the nearest wall hard enough to crack the stone.
“She’s under my protection.” Victor’s voice had changed: deeper, colder, carrying harmonics that made Ava’s teeth ache. “Spread the word. Anyone who touches her answers to me.”
He dropped the demon. The massive creature hit the ground, scrambled backward, and vanished into the crowd.
Other demons had stopped to watch. Victor turned to face them, and whatever they saw in his expression made them suddenly very interested in being elsewhere.
The street cleared around them.
“That’s going to draw attention,” Ava said as they walked on.
“Good.” Victor’s hand found her lower back again, guiding her through the thinning crowd. “I want attention. I want every demon in this district to know that touching you means dealing with me.”
“And if Marchosias hears?”
“He already knows we’re here. The chains told him the moment you crossed into Hell.” Victor’s expression was grim. “At this point, we’re not hiding. We’re racing.”
The Serpent’s Vesper occupied a building that had once been grand: carved stone facade, stained glass windows, architectural details that spoke of old money and older power. Time had worn it down, but the bones were still elegant. A faded queen accepting her decline with dignity.
Victor steered her toward a door marked only by a symbol scratched into rusting steel.
“What if he won’t help us?” Ava asked.
“Then we find another way.”
“Is there another way?”
Victor didn’t answer.
The bouncer wasten feet of liquid shadow, voice like gravel in a blender.
“No weapons. No wards. No recording devices.” His attention fixed on Ava’s chains. “And the substitute stays with you. We don’t need Marchosias’s people thinking we’re harboring contested property.”
