Chapter 9 · The Echoes That Bleed

"Drop it, Rowan. Now."

Mara’s blade didn’t just touch my throat—it bit. One twitch and I’d be bleeding out on the vault floor. She wasn't even looking at me. Her eyes were locked on the glass box Veyra had just slid across the tiles. Inside: the jagged, shimmering shards of my own stolen memories.

"Mara, please," I rasped. My hands were shaking. "I don't even know who I was before the first loop. If I don't see this, I'm just a ghost in my own skin."

"A ghost who begged for a reset," she spat.

She shifted, her shoulder slamming into mine. The proximity was violent, smelling of ozone and old blood. She pinned me against the freezing wall, her chest heaving, breath hot against my jaw. She was a predator. I was a man who couldn't remember his own middle name.

"Veyra said you made a deal," she hissed. "You didn't stumble into this hell—you signed the lease. Who did you sell out? The city? Me?"

"I don't know!" I yelled. The sound bounced off the gold-lined walls. "That's the whole point!"

"Wrong answer." She leaned in, her voice a lethal whisper. "The right answer is a name.