Chapter 7 · Black Tide at the Clinic

Kane's phone buzzed before we even made it down the council steps.

He stopped. Pulled it out. I watched his face go from stone to something worse.

"What?"

"Nora." He turned the screen toward me. A single text. *Hunters. Clinic. They're asking about the boy.*

My brother.

I didn't wait. I ran.

Kane caught my arm before I hit the street. "Evelyn—"

"Let go."

"You go in blind, they'll use you to draw him out." His grip tightened. Not rough. Steady. "We go together. Fast. But smart."

I wanted to rip free. Wanted to scream that smart didn't matter when my brother was in a clinic bed with council hunters circling like vultures. But Kane was already moving, pulling me toward the car, and I knew he was right.

I hated that he was right.

We didn't talk on the drive. Kane's knuckles were white on the wheel. I kept my phone in my hand, waiting for another text from Nora. Nothing came. The silence felt like a countdown.

Vesper City blurred past the windows. Neon signs. Empty alleys. The kind of streets that swallowed people whole if they didn't know how to move through them. I'd grown up here.