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"Get in the car."
Kael's hand clamped around my elbow before I could think about running. The black sedan idling at the curb had tinted windows and no plates. Real comforting.
"I don't do kidnappings on Tuesdays," I said, trying to yank my arm free. The mark on my wrist pulsed hot under my sleeve.
"Then call it a rescue." He shoved me toward the open door. "They're already tracking you."
"Who's they?"
"The people who put that mark on me. The ones who'll gut you and your brother to see if the curse transfers twice." He glanced up at the empty street. Too empty. Three a.m. in this part of town should still have drunks and dealers. "Move."
I moved.
The interior smelled like leather and something metallic. Blood, maybe. Kael slid in beside me and the driver pulled out before the door even shut. No one said a word. I pressed my back against the far door and watched the mark crawl another inch up my forearm.
Black lines, thin as spider silk. They didn't hurt. They burned.
"What happens when it reaches my shoulder?"
"It reaches your heart in about six hours." Kael didn't look at me. He was typing something on his phone, fast. "Then you stop."
"Stop what?"
"Breathing."
I stared at him. His face was still too pale, but the veins under his jaw had faded. Whatever that mark had been doing to him, breaking it bought him time.
It bought me a death sentence.
"You said seven nights," I said. "You said—"
"I said it takes seven nights to transfer it back without killing us both. The mark doesn't care about fairness. It just wants a body." He pocketed the phone and finally met my eyes. "You smashed the anchor. That made you the new host."
"I didn't know—"
"Doesn't matter." His voice was flat. Clinical. Like he was explaining a failed business deal. "The hunters who placed it will feel the break. They'll come for you to finish the job or take the mark back themselves. Either way, you don't walk out."
The car turned hard and I grabbed the door handle. My wrist throbbed. The driver—silent, buzz-cut, shoulders like a vault door—didn't even glance back.
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere they can't track you for the next six hours." Kael leaned forward and said something low to the driver. I caught the words "east perimeter" and "sweep the garage first."
"And then what? You magic it off me?"
"No." He sat back. "Then we bind it."
I laughed. Couldn't help it. The sound came out sharp and wrong. "Bind it. Like what, a contract? A pinky swear?"
"Like a blood lock." He pulled a slim black case from his coat pocket and set it on the seat between us. "You keep me alive for seven nights. I keep the mark from eating you. On the seventh night, I take it back and you walk away."
"And if I say no?"
"Then you die in about five hours and fifty minutes. And when the hunters come for your brother, I won't be there to stop them."
My hand went to my phone. Dead. I'd forgotten to charge it yesterday. Of course.
"Milo's at his apartment," I said. My throat felt tight. "He doesn't know anything. He's not part of this."
"He's leverage. That makes him part of it." Kael opened the case. Inside was a short silver blade, a glass vial of something dark, and a strip of black silk. "The hunters know you have family. They know where he lives. They'll use him to make you come out."
I wanted to throw up. Instead I grabbed his wrist. "If you're lying—"
"I'm not." He didn't pull away. His skin was still too cold. "Your mother broke a curse for me once. She saved my father's life. This is me paying that debt."
"By cursing me?"
"By keeping you alive long enough to undo it." He turned his hand over, palm up. The gesture looked almost like an offering. "Your mother was good at breaking things. Blood magic. Bone magic. Marks that weren't supposed to come off. She had a gift."
Had. Past tense.
"What happened to her?"
Kael's jaw tightened. For a second I thought he wouldn't answer. Then he said, "Selene Crowe."
The name hit me like cold water.
"Who?"
"Hunter broker. Runs the guild contracts out of the old port district." He let go of my wrist and picked up the blade. "She wanted your mother to break something that shouldn't be broken. Your mother refused. Selene doesn't take no."
"You're saying she killed her."
"I'm saying your mother disappeared the same night Selene put a bounty on every curse-breaker in the city. No body. No witnesses. Just gone." He tested the edge of the blade with his thumb. A thin line of red welled up. He didn't flinch. "Three years ago."
Three years. That was when Mom stopped calling. When the landlord said she'd cleared out her apartment and left no forwarding address. When Milo started asking questions I couldn't answer.
"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"Because you would've run." He wiped the blood on the silk and held out his hand. "And I need you alive."
The car stopped. I looked out the window. We were underground. A parking garage, massive and dark, with concrete pillars every twenty feet and not a single other car in sight. Overhead lights flickered. Somewhere in the distance, water dripped.
"Out," the driver said. First word he'd spoken. His voice sounded like gravel in a disposal.
Kael opened the door and got out. I didn't move.
"Nora." He leaned back in, and his face was too close. I could see the faint scar along his temple, the way his pupils had gone wide in the dim light. "You want answers about your mother? You want your brother to live through the week? Then get out of the car and let me bind this mark before it stops your heart."
I hated him. I hated the way he said it like a business transaction. I hated that he was right.
I got out.
The air down here was cold and stale. My breath puffed white. Kael led me between two pillars to a clearing where someone had spray-painted a circle on the floor. Symbols I didn't recognize ringed the edge. They looked old. Older than the concrete.
"Stand in the center," Kael said.
I stepped inside. The mark on my wrist flared hot, then went ice-cold. I gasped.
"It knows what's coming," Kael said. He knelt at the edge of the circle and started arranging the blade, the vial, the silk. "It's going to fight."
"What do I do?"
"Don't pass out. Don't leave the circle. And when I say the words, don't say anything back. Not yes, not no, not even a scream." He looked up at me. His eyes were black in the bad light. "If you break the binding halfway, it kills us both."
"Comforting."
"I'm not here to comfort you." He stood and drew a second circle around the first, this one in something wet and dark from the vial. Blood. It smelled like copper and smoke. "I'm here to make sure you survive long enough to be useful."
"Useful."
"You're a Vale. Your mother could break curses no one else could touch. If you've got even a fraction of her gift, I need it." He finished the circle and stepped back. "The hunters are coming for me. The mark was just the first move. I need someone who can see the traps before I walk into them."
"I'm a bartender."
"You're a curse-breaker's daughter." He opened the vial and poured the rest of the blood along the outer ring. The symbols started to glow. Faint red, like embers. "And you just broke a death mark with a cigarette lighter. So no. You're not just a bartender."
The mark on my wrist started to move. Not crawl. Move. Like something alive under my skin, trying to claw its way up to my shoulder.
I bit down on a scream.
Kael picked up the blade and sliced his palm. Blood dripped onto the outer circle. The glow brightened.
"Hold out your hand," he said.
I didn't want to. Every instinct I had said run. But Milo's face flashed in my head. Milo, who still called me every Sunday. Milo, who thought I was working double shifts to save up for a better place.
I held out my hand.
Kael took it. His grip was firm and too cold. He turned my wrist up and pressed the blade to my palm.
"Seven nights," he said. "You keep me alive. I keep you breathing. We break the curse and settle the debt."
The blade bit in. I felt blood run hot down my wrist, mixing with the black lines of the mark.
The symbols flared white.
Kael said something in a language I didn't know. The air in the circle went tight, like pressure before a storm. The mark stopped moving. For one second, everything went silent.
Then the mark pulsed.
Once. Twice.
It synced with my heartbeat.
"It's done," Kael said. He let go of my hand and stepped back. The glow faded. The blood on the floor turned black and soaked into the concrete. "You're bound."
I looked down. The mark had stopped at my elbow. It wasn't crawling anymore. But I could feel it now. A second heartbeat under my skin, slow and patient.
Waiting.
"What did you just do to me?"
"Bought you seven days." He wiped his palm on his coat. "The mark can't kill you while you're bound to me. But if I die, it finishes the job. So keep me alive."
"And if you're lying? If this is some kind of—"
The lights went out.
All of them. The garage dropped into black.
I heard the driver swear. Then the crack of a gunshot, sharp and flat in the enclosed space.
"Down!" Kael slammed into me and we hit the concrete hard. My head cracked against the floor and I tasted blood.
More gunshots. Muzzle flashes lit up the dark like strobe lights. I saw shapes moving between the pillars. Three. Four. More.
"They followed us," I said.
"No." Kael dragged me behind a pillar. His hand was on the back of my neck, holding me down. "They were already here."
A voice echoed across the garage. Female. Calm.
"Kael Mercer. You broke guild property. That's a contract violation."
Kael went still.
"Selene," he said quietly.
My blood went cold.
The woman's voice came closer. I could hear her heels clicking on concrete. Steady. Unhurried.
"Bring me the girl and I'll make it clean. You can even keep the mark. I'll call it a personal favor."
"Pass," Kael said.
A pause. Then a laugh, low and sharp.
"I was hoping you'd say that."
The pillar next to us exploded. Chunks of concrete rained down and I threw my arms over my head. Kael hauled me up and shoved me toward the far wall.
"Run."
"Where?"
"Anywhere that's not here."
I ran. My feet slipped on blood—someone's blood, I didn't look—and I slammed into another pillar. Behind me I heard fighting. A body hit the ground. Someone screamed.
Then Kael was there, grabbing my arm, dragging me toward a service door I hadn't seen in the dark.
"They're going to kill you," I said.
"They're going to try." He kicked the door open. A stairwell. Emergency lights cast everything in red. "But they'll kill you first. You're the one who broke the mark."
We hit the stairs and started climbing. My lungs burned. The mark on my wrist throbbed in time with my pulse.
Two flights up, the door below us crashed open.
"Mercer!" Selene's voice. Still calm. "You're making this harder than it needs to be."
Kael didn't answer. He pulled me up another flight, then another. At the fifth landing he stopped and pressed his hand against the wall. Something clicked. A hidden panel slid open.
"Inside," he said.
I looked at the narrow passage. Dark. No lights.
"Are you serious?"
"They're thirty seconds behind us." He shoved me toward the opening. "Move or die. Pick one."
I stepped inside. Kael followed and the panel slid shut behind us. The darkness was total. I couldn't see my own hand.
I heard him breathing next to me. Fast. Ragged.
"You're hurt," I said.
"I'm fine."
"You're bleeding. I can smell it."
"Then stop smelling." His hand found mine in the dark. Still too cold. "Stay quiet. They'll sweep the stairwell and move on."
We waited. I counted my heartbeats. Forty. Fifty. Somewhere outside, I heard voices. Footsteps. A door slamming.
Then silence.
Kael's grip on my hand tightened.
"Listen to me," he said. His voice was low. Close. "They're not going to stop. Selene wants the mark back and she wants you dead. That's not negotiable."
"Why me?"
"Because you broke it. Because you're Celeste Vale's daughter. Because you're the loose end she should've tied off three years ago." He let go of my hand. I heard him moving in the dark. "The only reason you're still breathing is because I bound you first. Now they have to go through me."
"Lucky me."
"Lucky both of us." A click. A faint glow. He'd pulled out his phone. The screen lit up his face from below. He looked like hell. Blood on his collar. A fresh cut above his eye. "Because if they kill you, I'm next. And I really hate dying."
He turned and started down the passage. I followed because there was nowhere else to go.
The passage opened into a basement. Old maintenance tunnels, by the look of it. Pipes overhead. Water pooling on the floor. Kael led me through three turns, then stopped at a heavy metal door.
"This goes to a safe house," he said. "You stay there until I figure out how many hunters Selene sent."
"And then what?"
"Then we start counting nights." He pushed the door open. On the other side was a narrow hallway, clean and bright. Expensive. "Seven nights, Nora. You keep me alive. I'll keep your brother breathing. And on the seventh night, I'll tell you everything Selene Crowe did to your mother."
He stepped through.
I looked down at my wrist. The mark had stopped moving, but I could still feel it. A second pulse. A countdown.
I followed him through the door.
It slammed shut behind me. Locked. I heard the bolts slide into place.
Kael was already walking away. I ran to catch up.
"Wait. You said you'd tell me—"
"I said I'd tell you on the seventh night." He didn't slow down. "Right now I need you alive and quiet. In that order."
We turned a corner. The hallway opened into a massive space. Penthouse. Floor-to-ceiling windows. The city sprawled out below us, lights like scattered stars. It would've been beautiful if I wasn't bleeding and cursed.
Kael crossed to a desk and opened a laptop. His fingers flew across the keys.
"Make yourself comfortable," he said. "You're not leaving."
"What if I want to?"
"Then they kill you in the elevator." He didn't look up. "Selene's got watchers on every exit in a six-block radius by now. You walk out that door, you're dead in three minutes."
I sank onto the nearest couch. My legs felt like water.
"This is insane."
"This is Tuesday." He kept typing. Then he stopped. His face went still.
"What?"
He turned the laptop toward me. On the screen was a photo. Me. Taken tonight. Outside the auction house. My face was circled in red.
Below it, a number.
Fifty thousand.
"Selene just posted a bounty," Kael said. His voice was flat. "Every hunter in the city is looking for you."
I stared at the screen. At my own face. At the number.
"She's offering fifty thousand dollars for me?"
"For your body." He closed the laptop. "Dead or alive. Preferably dead."
I opened my mouth. Closed it. No words came.
Kael stood and crossed to the window. He looked out at the city for a long moment. Then he said, "Welcome to the game, Nora. Hope you're a fast learner."
Behind us, something beeped.
I turned. A security panel by the door had gone red.
Kael swore.
"What is it?"
"Someone's in the building." He grabbed something from the desk. A gun. Black and ugly. "They found us."
"How?"
"Doesn't matter." He checked the magazine, then looked at me. His eyes were cold. "They're coming up. And now they kill you first."