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The knock came at two in the morning. Three hard raps, the kind that said they weren't asking.
I was already awake. Had been for an hour, staring at the water stain on the ceiling and running numbers that wouldn't add up no matter how many times I flipped them. Rent was due in six days. Lina needed new shoes. The protein paste in the cupboard would last us maybe three more meals if I stretched it.
The knock came again. Harder.
I rolled off the couch and checked the door camera. Two of them. Expensive coats, the kind with climate lining that didn't come from the street markets. The woman had silver threading in her collar. Corporate.
"Mara." Lina's voice, small and scared, came from the sleeping nook. "Who is it?"
"Nobody. Go back to sleep."
She didn't. I heard her sit up, heard the rustle of the blanket I'd patched three times already. She was twelve. She knew what a two-AM knock meant in Veyra City's lower blocks.
I opened the door before they could knock a third time. Didn't want them waking the whole floor. "Wrong address."
The woman smiled. She had perfect teeth. "Mara Voss?"
"Depends."
"We're here about a debt."
My stomach dropped, but I kept my face flat. "I don't have any debt."
"Your mother did." The man pulled out a tablet, swiped twice, turned it toward me. Numbers filled the screen. Big ones. Interest stacked on interest, penalty fees breeding like rats in the dark. "Vesper Voss. Signed a contract eleven years ago. Defaulted eight years ago. Disappeared seven years ago. Debt transfers to next of kin."
I stared at the numbers. They didn't make sense. Mom had been gone since I was thirteen. She wouldn't have borrowed this much. She couldn't have.
"That's not legal," I said.
"It is when the contract says so." The woman's smile never moved. "We've been very patient, Miss Voss. But patience has a limit."
Behind me, I heard Lina's bare feet on the floor. Heard her stop three steps away.
"How much?" My voice came out steadier than I felt.
The woman tilted her head. "Sixty-eight thousand."
I laughed. Couldn't help it. The sound came out sharp and ugly. "I don't have sixty-eight thousand. I don't have six hundred."
"We're aware." The man stepped forward. I noticed the bulge under his coat. Not a gun. Something worse. A bonder's glove, the kind that could rip a familiar right out of someone's chest if they had one. "Which is why we're here to discuss alternatives."
The air in the room changed. I felt Nox stir in my shadow, felt the cold prickle that meant it was paying attention now.
Don't, I thought at it. Not yet.
"What alternatives?" I asked.
The woman pulled out a second tablet. This one showed a logo I recognized. Bloodchain Arena. The underground spirit-fighting streams that ran every season, the ones where rich people bet on bonded fighters tearing each other apart for prize money.
"The new season starts in three days," she said. "We have an open slot. You enter, you fight, you earn. Every match you win, we deduct from the debt. You survive the full season, we wipe the slate."
I stared at her. "I'm a courier. I run packages. I don't fight."
"You have a familiar." Her eyes flicked to my shadow. "An unregistered one."
My blood went cold.
Nobody knew about Nox. Nobody. I'd kept it hidden for three years, ever since the night it crawled out of a puddle of my own blood and bonded to me without a contract, without a dealer, without any of the legal channels that were supposed to be the only way.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said.
"Miss Voss." The woman's voice went flat. Professional. "We've been watching you for two weeks. We know you have it. We know it's strong. And we know that if we report you to the Registry, you'll be in a detention block by morning, and your sister will be in state care by noon."
Lina made a small sound behind me. I didn't turn around.
"Or," the woman continued, "you sign the contract, you fight, and we keep your little secret. Everyone wins."
"Except me," I said.
"You're already losing." She held out the tablet. "This is your chance to lose less."
I looked at the screen. Saw the contract, the terms, the liability waiver that basically said they weren't responsible if I died in the cage. Saw the prize structure. Five thousand for your first win. Seven for your second. Ten for your third. It scaled fast, but so did the opponents.
The average fighter lasted three matches.
"And if I say no?" I asked.
"Then we take the other asset." The man's eyes moved to Lina. "Child labor contracts are very legal in the service sector. She's old enough."
I moved before I could think about it. Stepped between them and Lina, one hand out. "Don't."
"Then sign."
Nox uncoiled from my shadow. Not all the way. Just enough. Black light bled along the edges of my silhouette, cold and sharp and wrong in a way that made both of them take a step back.
The woman's smile finally cracked. "Interesting. It's stronger than our scan indicated."
"Get out," I said quietly.
She didn't move. Just watched Nox with the kind of look a collector gave a rare card. "Three days, Miss Voss. You have three days to show up at the Bloodchain registration office on Fifth and Krane. If you don't, we come back. And next time, we don't knock."
She set the tablet on the floor, right at the threshold.
Then they left.
I stood there for a long time, staring at the tablet's glowing screen. Behind me, Lina started crying. Quiet, the way she'd learned to cry so the neighbors wouldn't complain.
I picked up the tablet. Read the contract again. Saw the clause that said all matches were streamed live, that footage belonged to the arena, that fighters waived rights to privacy, safety, and medical liability.
Saw the clause that said if I didn't show, my debt would transfer to next of kin.
To Lina.
"Mara," Lina whispered. "What are we going to do?"
I looked at Nox. It had pulled itself halfway into form now, a shape like smoke and knives hovering at my shoulder. Its eyes—if they were eyes—fixed on me.
For just a second, I thought I heard something. A voice I hadn't heard in seven years. Warm and sad and so familiar it made my chest hurt.
Keep her safe, baby.
I closed my eyes. Opened them.
"We're going to fight," I said.
Lina grabbed my arm. "You can't. Mara, people die in those matches. I've seen the streams. You can't—"
"I can't let them take you either." I pulled her close, pressed my forehead to hers the way Mom used to do. "I'm not letting them touch you. I'm not."
She was shaking. So was I.
Nox folded itself back into my shadow, but I could still feel it there. Watching. Waiting.
I had three days to figure out how to survive the kind of fight I'd spent three years avoiding. Three days to turn a courier with a secret familiar into something that could stand in a cage and not die.
Three days, or Lina went.
I looked at the tablet one more time. At the registration address. At the liability waiver.
At the start date: 72 hours from now.
"Okay," I said to no one. To Nox. To the empty room. "Okay."
I saved the contract and set the tablet on the counter.
Then I started planning how to keep us both alive.