Chapter 16 · Joker Wakes

"Put the card down, Mercer, or your sister burns."

Silas Quinn's voice came from the wrong throat.

Cole stopped with his hand above the table. The card between his fingers twitched like it had a pulse. Across the black felt, Silas sat strapped into an iron chair, his wrists locked down, his head hanging at an ugly angle.

Then he lifted his face.

His eyes were silver. Not pale. Not human. Silver all the way through.

Eve stood behind him with one hand wrapped around a thin black knife. Her other hand pressed against the blood-burned mark on her palm. The contract had chewed through her glove. Red lines crawled up her wrist.

"That isn't Silas," she said.

"No kidding." Cole kept his eyes on the possessed arbiter. "Silas usually talks like a man who swallowed a law book."

The thing wearing Silas's face smiled.

"Still making jokes while your sister screams?"

The card in Cole's hand flexed.

A muffled cry came from inside it.

"Cole!"

His fingers tightened so hard the card cut into his skin.

Eve moved fast.