Chapter 29 · The Black-Market Heart

The heart was still beating in the glass case when Rin walked into the auction house, and that should have been her first clue to turn around.

It sat on a velvet cushion under dim red light, fist-sized and wet-looking, veins trailing off into nothing like torn thread. The rhythm was slow. Deliberate. The kind of pulse you felt in your own chest when someone pressed a blade to your throat and told you to stay still.

Kael was three steps ahead, hands loose at his sides, but his shoulders were tight. He'd been quiet since they left the safe house. The kind of quiet that meant he was either planning something or about to do something stupid.

Rin caught up and grabbed his wrist. "We're leaving."

"No."

"Kael—"

"I said no." He didn't pull away, but his voice dropped into that tone he used when he was done arguing. "That thing knows something."

"That thing," Rin hissed, "is a cultivator's heart ripped out of someone's chest and sold to the highest bidder. It doesn't know anything. It's bait."

"Then why are you sweating?"

She let go of his wrist. He was right.