Chapter 19 · Vessel One

"You're holding it upside down."

Vex doesn't look up from the ledger page. His thumb's pressed white against the corner, like he's trying to keep the ink from sliding off.

"I can read just fine," he says.

"Then read faster." I step closer. The cell's too small for this. Two bodies, one doorway, and a piece of paper that says I'm someone's science project. "What's a loop vessel?"

"You want the technical answer or the one that won't make you put a knife in me?"

"Both."

He finally looks up. His face is all wrong—too still, too careful. Vex doesn't do careful. He does cocky. He does profit margin. This version of him makes my neck itch.

"A vessel's someone who carries the reset," he says. "The anchor point. When you die, the day rolls back because you're the fixed point in the loop. Everyone else is just"

"Scenery."

"I was going to say collateral, but sure." He flips the page back, taps the header. "Says here they've been testing loop resonance since before you were born. Royal Academy, black-budget division. Halrik's name shows up sixteen times as project lead."

I should've killed Halrik slower.