"Don't let go! Don't you fucking let go!"
Viviane's nails dug into my wrist. Hard. I felt the bone grind under the pressure.
She was shaking. Eyes blown wide, staring right through me. She wasn't seeing the alley; she was seeing a ghost.
"Hey! Look at me!"
I grabbed her shoulders and slammed her back against the brick wall. The impact knocked the air out of her. "Breathe. You're here. You're with me."
"It's too loud," she gasped, chest heaving. "Make it stop. Please, just make it stop!"
The bells were still ringing. Not the church bells—the ones inside our skulls.
Ever since the second loop, the screaming started the moment we drifted ten feet apart. Not a sound, but a memory. Every death we'd lived on repeat, stacked like a deck of cards. Her executions. My beheading. Over and over.
And right now, the whole city was joining in.
"LOCKDOWN! BY ORDER OF THE HIGH SEE! NO ONE IN OR OUT!"
Steel boots hammered the cobblestones. Inquisitor Guard. Full formation. Shields up, pikes out. They were sweeping the street, block by block.
"They're closing the gates," I hissed. "All four. They're hunting us. Both of us."
Viviane's head snapped up. Sweat glued her black hair to her forehead. Her white Inquisitor coat was torn, filthy. She looked nothing like the ice queen who'd held a sword to my throat yesterday.
"Impossible," she breathed. "I command the Guard. They don't move without my seal."
"Yeah? Well, someone forged it. Or stole it. Look."
I dragged her down behind a stack of crates and pointed.
At the alley mouth, a junior inquisitor was nailing a fresh parchment to the board. Wet ink. Charcoal sketches of two faces.
Mine. And hers.
"WANTED FOR HERESY AND FORBIDDEN ARTS. VIVIANE CROSSE. SILAS VANE. DEAD OR ALIVE."
"What?" She actually choked. "That's my face! I'm the High Inquisitor! I sign the warrants, I don't get put on them!"
"Welcome to my life," I said. "Feels great, right? Being the monster for once?"
She tried to yank her hand away. Instantly, her eyes rolled back. A raw, broken noise tore from her throat. She lunged back, grabbing me even harder.
"Don't," she whispered, desperate. "Don't move. When you let go... it gets louder."
Her palm was freezing. Mine was sweating. But the second our skin touched, the screaming dialed down. Bearable.
"We have to bind it," I said. "The loop. It's unstable because we hate each other. The pact needs consent."
"What pact?"
"The one that's got us stuck. The forbidden one. The reason we reset when one of us dies."
She stared at me like I'd grown a second head. "There is no pact. I would never—I hunt mages who use that filth."
"Yeah, and I never asked to be chained to you, princess. But here we are. Holding hands in a trash alley while your own men hunt you. You wanna keep pretending, or you wanna live?"
She shoved me. Or tried to. Since she wouldn't let go, it was just a clumsy, angry scramble where we both stumbled.
"Don't call me that."
"Then make the noise stop. You're the genius Inquisitor. Fix it."
"You fix it! You're the mage!"
"I'm the *framed* mage," I snapped. "Big difference. And I only know one way to stabilize a death loop. You have to mean it. Both of us."
Boots clattered closer. A shout echoed: "Check the alleys!"
Viviane flinched. Her fingers tightened until my hand went numb.
"Talk fast," she said.
"It's a soul bind. Old as hell. Forbidden for a reason. We share the reset. The clock. If one dies, we both snap back an hour. If we get too far apart, feedback fries our brains. Like now."
"And the cost?" She didn't hesitate. "Every pact has a cost."
"We share everything," I said. "Pain. If I get cut, you feel the echo. If you get hit, I feel it. Distance limit stays. And we can't lie to each other inside it. Not big lies. The bond will know."
"That's it?"
"That's it? That's huge! You want me feeling your headaches and you feeling my knife wounds? We have to stay within twenty feet for who knows how many loops!"
She looked at our joined hands. Then at the wanted poster. Then at the Guard closing in.
Her jaw locked.
"You're lying," she said, though her voice shook.
"Try letting go and see how that goes," I challenged. "Go on. Let go and tell me I'm lying while your brain melts."
She didn't let go.
"I need you to say it," I said, my voice dropping. "You have to offer. It has to be willing. 'I bind myself to you.' Something like that. And I answer."
"And if I don't?"
"Then we keep looping. Screaming every time we separate. Dying every hour. Going insane by loop ten. Trust me, I've done the math."
A pike clanged against the crates two feet away. "Anyone in there?"
Viviane flinched hard. Her whole body pressed into mine. Chest to chest. I could feel her heart hammering through her coat. She smelled like steel, sweat, and that expensive incense they burn in the Cathedral.
Her eyes were inches from mine. Grey. Furious. Terrified.
"You swear this won't make me yours?" she whispered. "That you can't... control me?"
"I swear I'm not that kind of bastard," I said. "It's a tether, not a leash. We're stuck together. Equals. Whether we like it or not."
"Equals," she repeated. She sounded like she hated the word.
"Say it, Viviane."
She swallowed. Her hand was shaking so bad I had to grip it steady.
"I... I bind myself to you, Silas Vane," she forced out. Each word sounded like it cost her blood. "To break this loop. Willingly."
The air went cold. A sudden snap, even in the summer heat.
"I bind myself to you, Viviane Crosse," I said. "Willingly. Let it hold."
Heat shot up our joined hands. Not warm. Hot. Like a brand. White light flared between our palms, thin as a thread, then sank into the skin. A faint, pulsing circle appeared around both our wrists.
Viviane gasped. Her back arched, and her forehead dropped to my shoulder. Hard.
I froze. She was breathing against my neck. Shallow. Fast.
"You good?" I muttered.
"No," she whispered into my collar. "It burns."
"I know. Hold on. It fades."
It did. After three heartbeats, the light dimmed to a faint scar. The screaming in our heads cut out completely. Silence. Actual, beautiful silence.
She lifted her head slowly. Her face was an inch from mine. Her lips parted.
"It's quiet," she said. She sounded like a kid.
"Yeah. Better, right?"
We were still pressed together. Her hand in mine. Her other hand had fisted in my shirt without her noticing.
She noticed now. She shoved back, but not far. The tether tugged—a faint pull behind the ribs warning us we were hitting the limit.
"Don't get ideas," she snapped, but her cheeks were pink. "This changes nothing. You're still a suspect."
"And you're still the scary Inquisitor who just soul-bound herself to a death-row mage," I said. "So we're both making great life choices."
She opened her mouth to bite back—
BOOM.
The crate next to us exploded.
Wood splinters whipped my face. Viviane hit the ground hard, dragging me with her. A crossbow bolt quivered in the wall where her head had been a second ago.
"Down!"
Another bolt. Then a figure dropped from the rooftop. All black. No insignia. Masked. Moving too fast to be human.
He wasn't aiming at me. He swung a short blade straight for Viviane's throat.
She rolled, still clutching my hand, and kicked out. Her boot caught his knee. He didn't even flinch.
"Two birds," the assassin rasped, voice muffled. "One stone. My favorite kind of contract."
He lunged again—not for one of us, but for the space between us. He was trying to sever the tether, trying to kill us both in one swing.
Viviane yanked her sword free with her free hand. I pulled the dagger from my boot.
"You know him?" I yelled.
"Never seen him!" she yelled back. "Who sent you?"
The assassin smiled behind the mask. He flipped his blade. On the flat of the steel, catching the light, was a seal.
A cardinal's private seal. Gold wax.
I didn't recognize it. But Viviane went white.
"No," she whispered. "That's impossible. That's Julian's—"
The assassin didn't wait. He threw—