Chapter 7 · Soul Market

Sixteenth morning.

Kael didn't go to the showcase.

He went to the harbor at dawn with stolen knives and Miren's anchor disk hot against his chest. The fish sigil door was gone—only brine-stained stone.

"Closed," a fisherman said, mending nets. "Always closed till the moon tips."

The moon wouldn't tip for a week.

Kael returned to the academy and found Dorian asleep, exhausted from performing alone. Lightning burns speckled his forearms.

Kael searched the room. In Dorian's cufflink box, he found the sigil—microscopic etching on gold.

He pocketed it.

Dorian woke at noon. "Where were you?"

"Buying your betrayal."

Dorian sat up. "I didn't—"

"Your cufflink redirected your crown into the ward-stones. Either you planted it or someone who dresses you did."

Dorian's face went gray. "Mother's people."

"Then we find Mother's people."

They went together—first time in years as allies, not accidents of blood. The city slums swallowed them. A hedge-witch in a crooked house recognized their cheekbones and spat.

"She sold you both," the witch said. "Don't blame me."

"We need entry to the soul market," Kael said.

The witch laughed. "You need death. Market opens for the dead and the damned."

Liora found them there—