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"You're the girl who keeps dying."
Vex didn't look up from the grate he was prying open. His fingers were slick with something dark—blood or grease, I couldn't tell in the half-light of the drainage tunnel. The smell hit me first: rotting food, human waste, and something sharper underneath. Chemical. Industrial.
"And you're the rat who sells information to both sides," I said.
He grinned. Still didn't look up. "Guilty."
I kept my hand on the knife tucked into my belt. The note in my palm from yesterday—Don't die before midnight—had led me here, three levels below the Pits, where the city's drainage system bled into Ashgate's black market veins. Vex had sent it. Had to be. No one else knew I was looping.
Except maybe Halrik.
"How do you know?" I asked.
The grate came free with a wet scrape. Vex finally looked at me. He was younger than I'd expected—maybe twenty-five, with sharp eyes and a scar that split his left eyebrow in half. His coat was too nice for someone crawling through sewers. Stolen, probably.
"I don't," he said. "I'm guessing. But you just confirmed it."
I lunged.
He twisted sideways, slipping through the open grate and dropping into the tunnel below before I could grab him. I heard a splash, then his laugh echoing up.
"Come on down, Dane! Water's fine!"
I stared into the hole. Pitch black. The smell was worse now—thick enough to taste.
"I can leave you down there," I called.
"You could," Vex said. His voice was already moving, footsteps sloshing through water. "But then you won't know who's been betting on your matches. Or why Halrik's name is in the shipment ledger for tonight."
I dropped through the grate.
The water came up to my shins. Cold. Something soft brushed against my leg and I didn't let myself think about what it was. Vex was already ten feet ahead, a small glow-stone in his hand casting green light on the tunnel walls.
"Keep up," he said. "Patrol runs through here in five minutes."
"Patrol for what?"
"Smugglers. Black market goods. People who ask too many questions."
I caught up to him in three strides and shoved him against the wall. The glow-stone fell, spinning in the water. The light turned everything into moving shadows.
"Talk," I said. My forearm pressed across his throat. "What do you know about the loop?"
Vex didn't fight. He just smiled, and that pissed me off more than anything.
"You're stuck," he said. "Every time you die, the day resets. You remember. No one else does."
"How?"
"I don't know how. I know who."
I pressed harder. "Names."
"Can't breathe, can't talk," he choked out.
I eased off. Just enough.
Vex coughed, then laughed again—a wet, rattling sound. "You're exactly what they said you'd be. Royal guard training, zero patience, and a death wish the size of the palace."
"Who's 'they'?"
"The people who pay me to watch you die."
I pulled my knife.
Vex's eyes flicked to the blade, then back to my face. "Go ahead. Kill me. You'll reset, I'll forget, and you'll still be stuck in the Pits with nothing. Or—" He held up one hand, palm out. "You let me finish my sentence and maybe we both get what we want."
I didn't move the knife. "You've got ten seconds."
"There's a shipment coming into Ashgate tonight. Midnight. Cargo manifest from the palace. Halrik's crew is handling it personally."
"What's in it?"
"Don't know. But the ledger has a list of names. People who aren't supposed to exist anymore. Political problems. Loose ends." He met my eyes. "Your name's first on the list."
The water around us rippled. Footsteps. Voices echoing from somewhere deeper in the tunnel.
Vex's face went tight. "Patrol. We need to move."
"You're lying," I said.
"I'm really not." He grabbed my wrist—not fighting, just pulling. "You want proof? Let me walk out of here alive and I'll get you into the warehouse. You can see the ledger yourself."
The voices were closer now. Two, maybe three people. Armored boots on stone.
I shoved Vex forward. "Run."
We ran.
The tunnel branched left, then right, then opened into a wider chamber where the ceiling rose high enough that I couldn't see it. The glow-stone light barely reached the walls. Vex pulled a second stone from his pocket and tossed it ahead. It landed near a metal ladder bolted into the stone.
"Up," he said.
I went first. Didn't trust him behind me. The ladder was slick with condensation and something else—oil, maybe. My hands kept slipping. Below, the patrol voices bounced through the tunnels, getting louder.
"Faster," Vex hissed.
I reached the top—a narrow platform with a hatch above it. I shoved it open and pulled myself through into an alley. Night air hit my face, warm and thick with smoke. Ashgate's industrial quarter. I could hear the forges, the grind of machinery, the shouts of workers on the night shift.
Vex came up behind me and slammed the hatch shut. He was breathing hard, grinning like he'd just won something.
"See?" he said. "Told you I was useful."
I grabbed his collar and slammed him against the alley wall. "Why are you helping me?"
"I'm not." He didn't even try to push me off. "I'm helping myself. You break the loop, you clear your name, you go after Halrik—people are going to pay a lot of money to know how that happens. I'm just investing early."
"You're using me."
"Obviously." His grin widened. "And you're using me. That's how deals work, Dane."
I let him go.
Vex straightened his coat, still smiling. "Midnight. East warehouse, down by the canal docks. I'll get you in. You see the ledger. After that, we're even."
"We're not even," I said.
"Fine. Then you owe me." He started walking, then stopped and looked back. "Oh, and Dane? Don't die before midnight. Really screws up my schedule."
He disappeared into the smoke and shadows.
I stood there, fists clenched, water dripping from my boots. My chest ached where the veteran's sword had gone through six loops ago. The memory was sharp enough to taste metal.
Midnight. Warehouse. Ledger.
Halrik's name.
My name.
I turned toward the docks. The canal was a black line cutting through the district, reflecting the forge-light like a scar. Somewhere out there, a shipment was coming in. Proof. Evidence. Maybe a way out.
Or maybe another trap.
I started walking.
The docks were quiet. Too quiet for a district that never slept. The warehouses rose up on either side of the canal, dark shapes against a darker sky. I counted three guards on the main dock, all wearing Ashgate patrol colors. Not city guards. Private.
Halrik's people.
I kept to the shadows, moving between stacks of crates and shipping containers. The east warehouse was the largest—three stories, iron doors, no windows on the ground floor. A single light burned above the entrance.
Vex stepped out from behind a container.
I almost stabbed him.
"Easy," he said, hands up. "It's me."
"I know."
"Just making sure you didn't forget." He nodded toward the warehouse. "Shipment's inside. Came in twenty minutes ago. Halrik's crew unloaded it personally, then left two guards on the door."
"Two?"
"Two."
I looked at him. "That's light security for something this important."
"Yeah." Vex's smile was gone now. "Which means either it's a trap, or whatever's in there is dangerous enough that they don't think anyone's stupid enough to break in."
"Guess we'll find out," I said.
Vex pulled a small leather pouch from his coat and handed it to me. "Smoke pellets. Alchemical. Toss one, you've got thirty seconds of cover before it clears. After that, you're on your own."
"You're not coming?"
"I'm an information broker, not a soldier." He stepped back. "I get you in. You get the ledger. I get paid. That's the deal."
I took the pouch. "If you sell me out—"
"You'll reset and come kill me in a previous loop. I know." He grinned again, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I'm betting you won't need to."
He walked away.
I crouched behind the last row of crates and watched the warehouse entrance. Two guards. Both armed. One yawning. The other checking a pocket watch.
Midnight in three minutes.
I pulled a smoke pellet from the pouch. Small, round, cold in my palm. I could throw it, rush the door, take both guards before the smoke cleared.
Or I could die.
Again.
I threw the pellet.
Smoke exploded across the dock—thick, white, choking. I ran. The guards shouted. I heard steel scraping from sheaths, boots on stone. I hit the first guard low, driving my shoulder into his gut, and he went down hard. The second one swung blind. I ducked, came up inside his reach, and slammed my knife hilt into his temple.
He dropped.
The smoke was already clearing.
I grabbed the door handle and pulled. Locked.
I checked the first guard—unconscious, but breathing. Key ring on his belt. I took it and tried three keys before one turned.
The door opened.
Inside, the warehouse was dark except for a single lantern hanging from a hook near the back. Crates were stacked floor to ceiling, each one stamped with a palace seal. I moved toward the lantern, knife ready.
A table. A ledger, open.
I stepped closer.
The first name on the list: Kira Dane.
The second: Marcus Thionne.
The third: Elena Voss.
All people I knew. All royal guards. All disappeared after the coup.
My hands shook.
Behind me, the door slammed shut.
I spun.
Commander Halrik Valen stepped out of the shadows, a crossbow in his hands. Aimed at my chest.
"Hello, Kira," he said. "I was wondering when you'd finally make it