Chapter 8 · The Price of the True Page

"Put the knife down, Mara." Soren caught my wrist before the blade could touch Nolan's throat.

His fingers locked around the black mark on my palm. Heat snapped through my arm. The contract answered with a pulse, and Nolan jerked against the chair behind him.

"Let go of me." I twisted hard. "You brought him here. You chained him to your debt."

"I didn't chain him to anything."

"Then why is his name written under yours?"

Soren's jaw tightened. He stood between Nolan and me, close enough that his coat brushed my knee. Blood still ran from the gun contract burned into his chest beneath his shirt. I could smell iron, leather, and the sharp smoke coming off my marked hand.

Nolan laughed from the chair. It wasn't a happy sound.

"Ask him about the first loan," my brother said. "Ask him who signed it."

Soren didn't look at him. His eyes stayed on me.

"Mara, the page is behind the false ledger. We have minutes before the contract fires again."

"You keep saying minutes like that makes you innocent."

"No. It makes you alive."

The copy ledger lay open on the iron table.