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"Don't you fucking move, Voss." The boot hit my wrist and pinned it to the concrete.
"Get off me!" I twisted and clawed at the leather, but he just pressed harder. "Get your damn boot off!"
"You run again and I break it," he said. "You understand me?"
I knew that voice. Cold. Flat. Like he was already bored of me.
Cain Rook.
"Rook?" I spat. "Seriously? They sent you? For a busted courier job?"
"You stole a core," he said. "That's not courier work. That's treason."
"I didn't steal anything!" I bucked under his boot. "I fix toasters for people who can't afford council rates, you asshole. I don't steal city cores!"
He didn't answer. He just crouched. And then I saw the sigil iron in his hand.
It was still hot. Brass glowing white at the edges.
"Oh hell no," I said. "No. No way. You are not putting that on me."
"Hold still."
"Don't you touch me with that!" I swung with my free hand and he caught my wrist mid-air. Like it was nothing.
His fingers locked around me. Skin hot. Too hot. And his eyes never left mine.
"You have two choices," he said, voice low. "You take the mark and you get a trial. You run and I put you down right here."
"That's not a choice!" I shouted. "That's you murdering me with paperwork!"
"Mara Voss," he said, and the way he said my name made my stomach drop. "For theft of the Brass Core, by order of the Council, you are bound."
He slammed the iron down.
I screamed.
It wasn't just heat. It was like someone poured liquid wire straight into my chest. It burned through my shirt, through skin, and hooked right into my ribs. My back arched off the concrete. My teeth clacked together.
"Stop! Stop it! Get it off!" I screamed and beat at his arm. "It burns, it burns, you bastard, get it off!"
"Breathe," he ordered, but his grip tightened. "Breathe through it."
"Fuck you! Fuck your breathing!" I choked on a sob. The smell hit me then. Hot metal and my own skin. "You branded me! You actually branded me!"
He lifted the iron. The brass sigil was left behind, sunk into my chest, right over my heart. A circle of interlocking gears, still smoking. And it was ticking.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
"What is that?" I gasped, scrambling back until my shoulders hit the wall. My hand hovered over it, too scared to touch. "What did you do to me?"
"Countdown sigil," he said, standing. He was so damn tall. He blocked the single light in the alley. "Twenty-four hours. You run, it burns you alive. You tamper with it, it burns you alive. You understand?"
"Twenty-four hours until what?" My voice cracked. "Until I what, Rook?"
"Until you cook from the inside out," he said flatly. "Unless you deliver the core."
"I don't have the core!" I shouted. Tears were running now and I hated it. I hated him seeing it. "I told you, I didn't take it! Someone set me up!"
"Everyone says that."
"I'm not everyone!" I slammed my fist against the concrete. "Check the workshop logs! Check Inez, she'll tell you I was with her all night!"
"Inez Calder doesn't vouch for anyone," he said. "Not even you."
His radio crackled. A voice barked, "Rook, status? Is the target secured?"
Cain didn't look away from me. His eyes dropped to the sigil. It pulsed once, bright brass light flaring under my skin.
"Target secured," he said into the radio. "Sigil set. Bringing her in."
"No!" I lunged for the alley mouth. I made it two steps.
He caught me around the waist and slammed me back against the wall. Hard.
My breath punched out of me. His forearm came up, pinning my shoulders. His body pressed in close. Too close.
I could feel the heat coming off him. I could smell oil and leather and something sharp, like ozone.
"Let go of me!" I hissed and shoved at his chest. He didn't move an inch. "Get off!"
"Stop fighting," he said, right against my ear. His voice dropped. "You're making it worse."
"I'm making it worse? You just put a bomb in my chest!"
"It's not a bomb," he said. "It's a leash."
"Same damn thing!"
I kneed him. Or tried to. He shifted his hip and blocked me, and now my leg was trapped between his. His hand slid from my shoulder to my wrist and pinned it above my head.
The sigil flared again. Hotter this time. I whimpered before I could stop myself.
"See?" he murmured. His eyes flicked to my mouth, then back to the sigil. "It reacts to stress. To pulse. So calm down."
"How am I supposed to calm down when you're crushing me?" I snapped, but my voice shook.
"Because if you don't, you'll trigger it early."
We stared at each other. Breathing hard. His face was inches from mine. I could see the faint scar through his eyebrow. The stubble on his jaw. The way his jaw was clenched so tight it looked like it hurt.
I hated him. God, I hated him. He took my brother. He took Jax two years ago for the same bullshit charge and I never saw him again.
"You did this to Jax too, didn't you?" I whispered. "Did he get a pretty little clock before you disappeared him?"
Something flickered in his eyes. Just for a second.
"Don't," he said.
"Don't what? Tell the truth?"
"Don't say his name like you know what happened."
"I know you took him!" I yanked against his hold. "You and your council dogs! Where is he, Rook? Where's my brother?"
His grip tightened until my wrist ached.
"You want to see your brother again?" he said, low and dangerous. "Then you find that core. Because that's the only thing keeping you alive past tomorrow."
The sigil ticked louder. I could feel it now, like a second heartbeat, but wrong. Too fast. Too mechanical.
And then the gears around us started to move.
Not his. Mine.
The alley was full of junk. Busted regulators, dead clockwork pigeons, a busted cargo lifter with its guts hanging out. All of it dead for months.
Until now.
"What are you doing?" Cain narrowed his eyes.
"I'm not—" I blinked. The lifter's arm twitched. The pigeons' eyes lit up amber. "I didn't—"
My hands were shaking. The sigil was burning hotter, and the heat was bleeding down my arms, into my fingertips. The air tasted like copper.
"Stop it," Cain barked. "Shut it down!"
"I can't!" I cried. "It's not me, it's the—"
The lifter lurched. Metal screamed. It swung its arm straight at Cain's back.
"Rook, move!" I shouted.
He spun, fast, shoving me behind him as the lifter's claw slammed into the wall where his head had been. Concrete exploded. Dust choked the alley.
He drew his pistol in one smooth motion and fired. Twice. The lifter's core sparked and died, arm hanging limp.
The pigeons kept coming though. Three of them, wings clattering, beaks snapping. They weren't supposed to fly anymore. I'd stripped them for parts myself.
"Down!" Cain grabbed me and dropped us both as one dove straight at my face. He fired over my shoulder. Feathers and brass rained down.
I hit the ground hard, Cain half over me. His weight pinned me. His coat fell around us like a shield. His breath was hot against my cheek.
"Are you doing this?" he growled, gun still up, scanning.
"No! Yes! I don't know!" I gasped. My hands were lit up. Thin brass lines, like circuits, glowing under my skin from the sigil all the way to my fingertips. "It's pulling! It's pulling everything!"
"Then pull it back!"
"I don't know how!"
The last pigeon hit the ground and twitched, then went still. Silence slammed back down, except for our breathing and that damn ticking.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Cain was still over me. His knee between my legs, his hand braced by my head, his pistol smoking. His chest pressed against mine and I could feel his heart hammering. Or was that mine? Or the sigil?
"Get off," I whispered, but it came out shaky. Not angry anymore. Scared.
He didn't move right away. His eyes dropped to my chest. The sigil was glowing brighter than ever, and the light painted his face gold.
"That's forbidden gear-magic," he said quietly. "That's a dead art. Where did you learn that?"
"I didn't learn it!" I said. "I just fix things! I don't— I never—"
"You just woke up half the alley with a thought."
"I didn't mean to!" My eyes stung. "It was the sigil, it did something to me!"
His hand moved. Slowly. He wasn't holding the gun anymore. He holstered it. And then his fingers hovered over the sigil, not touching, just close enough that I could feel the heat of his skin.
"Don't," I breathed.
"Does it hurt?" he asked.
"What do you think?"
His fingertips brushed the edge of the light. Just a graze.
A jolt shot through me. Not pain. Something else. Hot and sharp and way too intimate. My back bowed before I could stop it and a gasp ripped out of me.
Cain's eyes shot to mine. His hand froze.
"Did—" he started.
"Don't touch it again," I snapped, cheeks burning. "Don't ever touch it again."
He pulled his hand back like he'd been burned. His jaw tightened.
"Twenty-four hours, Voss," he said, pushing off me and standing. He offered me a hand. Like we were supposed to be polite now.
I slapped it away and scrambled up myself, clutching my chest. The glow was fading, but the ticking wasn't.
"And what happens in twenty-four hours?" I demanded. "I just drop dead?"
"You burn," he said. "From the inside. Unless I unlock it."
"You have the key?" I stared at him. "You have the key and you just— you just branded me like an animal?"
"I have the key," he said. He tapped his own chest. Right over his heart. Where a faint brass outline glowed under his shirt, matching mine. "It's tied to me. My pulse. My command. You live or die by what I decide now."
"You—" My hands fisted. "You own me? That's what this is? I'm your property for a day?"
"You're my responsibility," he corrected, but his voice was rougher now. "And you're going to stay close. You run, you die. You lie to me, you die. You use that trick again without my say-so, you die. Clear?"
"Crystal," I spat. "You council bastard."
He stepped in. Close again. I backed up until the wall hit my spine. He planted a hand on either side of my head, caging me in.
"Say it," he said. "Say you understand."
"I understand you're a—"
The alley door at the far end banged open. Light cut across the dust.
A silhouette stood there. Long coat. Brass mask covering half her face. And a scatter-gun pointed straight at us.
"Cain Rook," a woman's voice purred, distorted through the mask. "You branded the wrong girl. Hand her over, or I take her off your corpse."
Cain's hand went to his pistol. He didn't move away from me. If anything, he pressed closer, shielding me with his body.
"Who the hell are you?" I shouted at the mask.
She cocked the gun. The sigil on my chest flared white-hot and I screamed.
"You want to live past tomorrow, little gear-mage?" Cain hissed in my ear, his thumb suddenly pressing hard over the sigil, holding the burn back by sheer pressure, his other hand lifting his gun toward the masked woman. "Then say you belong to me—"