Chapter 2

His hand slid from my elbow to my wrist. His thumb pressed against my pulse. The contact was brief, but heat climbed from his skin into mine.

He looked down at his fingers.

Then back at me.

"You're shaking," he said.

"I'm deciding where to stab you."

"Your pulse says otherwise."

"My pulse hates you."

"Your pulse is scared."

I leaned closer, close enough for him to feel my breath against his cheek. "My pulse is smart."

For one second, neither of us moved.

His gaze dropped to my mouth. It was quick. Barely there. Still, I caught it.

So did he.

Dax's expression hardened as if he could punish himself for looking.

"Save the flirting," he said.

"That was flirting? You're worse at it than you are at reading contracts."

His grip tightened.

The black vow inside his chest gave a wet, cracking sound.

Dax folded forward with a strangled breath.

I shoved him onto the stool before he hit the floor.

"Don't move."

"You just told me to stop touching you."

"I changed my mind. Try to keep up."

I snatched the pistol from the boards and kicked it beneath the bench. Then I grabbed the small brass box from the shelf above Dax's head.

He saw it and pushed himself upright.

"What's that?"

"The reason you haven't died yet."

"That box is empty."

"You inspected my inventory while breaking in?"

"I watched you for six days."

My hand paused over the lid.

"That's supposed to make me feel safer?"

"No. It was supposed to make sure you couldn't run."

"And how did that work out?"

"You're still here."

"Because you cornered me in my own shop."

"Because every other place in the city is crawling with Bureau agents."

I opened the box.

A coil of red thread lay inside, wrapped around a sliver of bone-white glass. The glass was cut from a promise mirror, one of the few materials that could show an oath's true shape. The Bureau had confiscated mine after my sister died. They had missed the hidden piece under the floorboard.

Dax watched my face.

"You kept a vow mirror."

"I keep lots of things the Bureau says I can't have."

"If they find it—"

"They'll add another charge to the list. I already have sabotage, unlawful repair, obstruction, and your favorite one."

"Vow-breaking."

"There it is. You sound proud."

He grabbed the edge of the bench as another wave hit him. His knuckles went white.

"I never called you guilty."

I stared at him. "You signed my arrest order."

"I signed the order they gave me."

"You dragged me out of my shop in front of my neighbors."

"You ran."

"Because your people were going to chain me to a public oath post."

"They were going to question you."

"With a blade under my hand?"

His eyes shifted.

There it was. A crack.

"You knew," I said. "You knew what they planned."

"I knew enough to get you out before they started."

"You call throwing me into a transport cage getting me out?"

"You weren't in the cage when the transport left."

The words landed harder than I expected.

I held the mirror shard up to his chest. "Take off the coat."

"No."

"Then die dressed."

"You don't need to see the wound."

"I need to see the vow. The coat is warded."

He gave me a cold look. "You're enjoying this."

"A little."

"You're going to have to touch me."

"I know. Try not to make it weird."

His mouth twitched.

Not a smile. Almost one.

He unfastened the remaining buttons with stiff fingers and shrugged the coat off. It fell beside the stool. His shirt was dark with blood, torn open at the chest. I kept my eyes on the wound and nowhere else.

Dax noticed anyway.

"You can look, Mara. I'm not going to arrest you for it."

"I prefer my enemies conscious and clothed. It makes the paperwork easier."

"You have a very specific idea of romance."

"You have a very specific idea of dying in my workshop."

I pressed the mirror shard over the wound.

Dax's entire body went rigid.

The glass turned cloudy, then cleared.

Black lines spread beneath it, forming a tight knot around his heart. The vow had no clean edges. It looked like someone had poured ink into a crack and watched it grow.

"That's not a capture oath," I said.

"I know."

"It's a death vow."

"I know that too."

"Who bound it?"

"I don't know."

I lifted the shard. The black lines moved under his skin.

"Liar."

"If I knew, I'd be killing them instead of asking you for help."

"You expect me to believe you can't trace a vow? You're an oath-enforcer. That's your whole job."

"I can trace a legal vow. This one has no seal. No maker's mark. No witness line."

"Then it wasn't made legally."

"Neither was your sister's last vow."

The shard slipped in my fingers.

Dax's eyes stayed on me.

"Don't say her name," I said.

"I didn't."

"You were about to."

"You want answers about what happened to her?"

"Not from you."

"Why?"

"Because you stood beside the tribunal while they called her a traitor."

His jaw flexed. "I stood outside the chamber."

"You were wearing the Bureau gray."

"I wasn't allowed inside."

"You still wore the badge."

"You think I don't know what that badge means?"

His voice dropped. The room seemed to tighten around it.

"I know exactly what it means," he said. "It means people look at me and decide I'm the knife before I even draw it."

"Are you saying you're not?"

"I'm saying I don't waste knives on people I want alive."

His hand caught mine before I could pull away.

The mirror shard pressed between our palms.

His skin was hot. Mine was colder from years of working with dead vows. The difference sent a sharp tingle through my fingers.

"Let go," I said.

"You need both hands steady."

"I said let go."

"You can kill me after."