Chapter 23 · The Job That Changed

The death warrant's still in Leah's hand when I pull myself off the floor.

My chest doesn't bleed. The Hollow's blade went through something deeper than skin. Every breath feels like I'm dragging air through broken glass, but I've had worse. I've had a lot worse.

Leah's staring at the parchment like it might bite her.

"That's not my signature," she says. Her voice is flat. Too flat. The kind of flat that comes right before someone breaks.

I lean against the counter. My legs aren't cooperating yet. "I know."

"You don't know." She looks up. Her eyes are red-rimmed but dry. "You don't know what my signature looks like."

"I know what a forgery looks like." I nod at the warrant. "And I know you didn't hire a Hollow to kill yourself."

Ink lands on the espresso machine. He's got sugar crystals stuck to his beak. During the fight he dive-bombed the Hollow with a mouthful of sanctified water and granulated sugar. It worked better than I expected. Hollows hate anything that holds memory of life. Water remembers every hand that touched it. Sugar remembers every field it grew in.

"Someone wants us both dead," I say.