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The contract rope burned cold against my wrist.
Mira didn't look back. She walked like she owned the rubble, boots crunching over glass and twisted iron, and I followed because the black cord looped between us said I had to. My head was still ringing with that last line the bone tablet shoved into my skull. Your sister is still alive. I wanted to believe it. God, I wanted to rip the thing open and demand proof, but Mira's pace didn't give me the chance to breathe, let alone stop and have a breakdown in the middle of a burned-out transit station.
We climbed a narrow service ladder bolted to the wall. Mira went first. I kept my eyes on the rungs and tried not to think about the drop behind me or the way the rope tugged at my pulse every time I hesitated. When we reached the upper platform, the air tasted different. Less smoke. More stone and cold wind. The ceiling opened into a cavern lit by hanging lanterns that swayed on chains, throwing shadows across carved pillars and banners I didn't recognize.
"Keep up," Mira said. She didn't slow down.
I caught up beside her. "Where are we going?"
"Vey quarter. You still have a room there. Barely." She glanced sideways at me, and her expression was flat. "Don't get excited. Half the clan wants you dead, and the other half wants you gone. The only reason you're walking in is because I signed my name next to yours."
"Great. So I'm your problem now."
"You were always my problem." She turned down a side corridor. The stone here was older, the carvings sharper. Names ran along the walls in vertical columns, some of them scratched out, some of them gilded. I recognized the style from hospitals back home. Donor walls. Memorial plaques. Except these names had dates that stretched back centuries, and a few of them still glowed faintly, like someone was keeping a candle lit.
Mira stopped in front of a narrow archway. Beyond it, I could see a courtyard, open to the sky. Or what passed for sky here. It was deep blue, streaked with silver, and it moved too slow to be clouds. She didn't step through. Instead, she turned and faced me, arms crossed.
"You signed the contract with Lucan Vey's full name," she said.
I nodded. My throat was dry.
"So either you're him, or you're stupid enough to steal a dead man's identity and think no one would notice." Her eyes didn't blink. "Which is it?"
I met her stare. "I'm him."
"Prove it."
"How?"
She stepped closer. The contract rope slackened between us, but the space didn't. I could feel the heat coming off her, or maybe that was just my own pulse hammering in my ears. She was shorter than me by half a head, but the way she looked up made it feel like she was the one backing me into a corner.
"You've been gone for two months," she said. "No one saw you leave. No one saw you come back. The last time anyone heard your name, you were getting dragged out of the Hall of Marks for failing your third trial. You show up now, the same night someone tries to crack open a gate anchor, and you don't even flinch when I mention Orin Valehart. So I'm asking you one more time. Who are you?"
I wanted to tell her the truth. I wanted to say I'm not him, I'm just a guy who pulled the wrong body out of a subway crash and woke up in a nightmare. But the bone tablet's words were still burning behind my ribs. Your sister is still alive. If I told Mira I wasn't Lucan, she'd cut the contract and leave me to Orin. If I lied and she caught me, same result. So I did the only thing I could. I gave her part of it.
"I don't remember," I said.
Her jaw tightened. "Convenient."
"I'm serious. The last thing I remember before waking up in that hall was—" I stopped. What was the last thing? The subway. The woman with the blade in her ribs. The ceiling coming down. But Lucan wouldn't know any of that. I swallowed and pivoted. "Pain. And then nothing. I woke up, and you were standing over me."
Mira didn't move. She studied me like I was a puzzle with missing pieces, and she was deciding whether to solve it or throw it in the fire. Finally, she exhaled through her nose and stepped back.
"Fine," she said. "You don't remember. That means you don't remember who you pissed off, who you owe, or why half the council wants your blood trial moved up. Lucky for you, I do."
She turned and walked through the archway. I followed, because the rope didn't give me a choice, and because I needed to know what she knew. The courtyard was smaller than I expected. A stone fountain sat in the center, dry and cracked, and the walls were lined with doors. Most of them were shut. A few had symbols burned into the wood. Mira stopped in front of one near the back. The door was plain, no markings, and the handle looked like it hadn't been touched in weeks.
"This was yours," she said. She pushed the door open. It creaked.
The room inside was small. A bed, a desk, a single narrow window that let in more cold than light. The walls were bare except for one shelf that held a stack of books and a knife with a chipped blade. Dust covered everything. It didn't look like a place someone lived. It looked like a place someone survived.
Mira leaned against the doorframe. "The trial's at dawn. Blood trial. You know what that means?"
I shook my head.
"You fight someone the council picks. You win, you stay. You lose, you're exiled. Or dead, depending on who they send." She paused. "Orin's going to make sure they send someone good."
"Can I refuse?"
"No. You signed the contract. That bought you time, not a way out." She looked at me, and for the first time, I saw something other than suspicion in her eyes. It might have been frustration. It might have been something worse. "If you really don't remember, you're going to die tomorrow. And if you do remember, and you're lying to me, I'll kill you myself."
She pushed off the doorframe and stepped into the courtyard. The contract rope stretched between us, but she didn't pull it. She just stood there, back to me, looking up at the wrong-colored sky.
"Who was she?" I asked.
Mira didn't turn around. "Who?"
"The woman in the hall. The one who said your name."
The silence stretched. I thought she wasn't going to answer. Then she did, and her voice was quieter than I'd heard it all night.
"My mother."
I didn't know what to say to that. I didn't know what Lucan would have said, or what Noah should say, so I just stood there and waited. Mira's shoulders moved, just once, like she was shaking something off.
"She died six years ago," Mira said. "Someone used her name tonight because they knew it would stop me. And the only people who know that are the ones who were there when it happened." She turned around, and her eyes were sharp again. "So either you were there, or you're working with someone who was. Either way, you're the only lead I have."
She walked past me, back toward the archway, and the rope pulled taut. I followed. My mind was spinning. The woman in the hall, the name, the way Mira's voice cracked just slightly when she said my mother. I didn't know what it meant, but I knew it mattered. And I knew that if I wanted to survive long enough to find out if the bone tablet was telling the truth about my sister, I needed Mira to believe I was on her side.
We reached the archway. Mira stopped and looked back at me one last time.
"Get some sleep," she said. "You're going to need it."
She walked away. The contract rope stayed solid between us, black and cold and binding, and I stood there in the doorway of a dead man's room, listening to the sound of bells starting to ring somewhere deep in the stone. They were low and slow, like a heartbeat, like a countdown.
Dawn was coming. And I had no idea how to fight.