Chapter 20 · The Ledger Is Alive

The Ledger was screaming.

Not sound. Worse. It thrashed inside Lucan's ribs like something trying to claw its way out through bone. The cracked tablet in his coat pocket burned hot enough that he smelled wool starting to singe.

Around them the Bone Market stalls were collapsing, vendor stalls crashing down as the ground buckled and split. Cassian was on one knee, blood still dripping from where Mira had cut the leash. Mira herself stood three feet away, blade half-drawn, eyes locked on the widening crack in the air behind Lucan's shoulder.

The gate.

It hung there like a wound in the world, edges flickering between solid and not. Through it Lucan could see shadows moving. Shapes that didn't belong.

"Lucan." Mira's voice was tight. "Whatever you're thinking, don't."

He wasn't thinking. That was the problem. The Ledger was pulling at him, and every instinct Noah Vale had ever trained as an EMT was firing at once. Someone was dying. He could feel it the way you feel a drop in air pressure before a storm. The gate pulsed, and for half a second he saw white tile. Fluorescent lights. A hallway he knew.

His sister's hospital.

"Shit.