Chapter 17 · The City Forgets Her

The dead lawmakers stood in a circle around Noa.

Their robes hung from bodies that should have been dust, the hems brushing the marble floor with a dry, papery whisper. One of them had no eyes. Another wore a silver chain through the hollow beneath his jaw. They all faced her as if she were a document waiting to be stamped.

Behind them, the master contract breathed.

It filled the floor beneath the council chamber, a living web of black lines sunk into white stone. Each thread pulsed with a slow, wet light. With every pulse, something vanished.

A name from the gallery. A face from a clerk's memory. A child's recollection of her mother's hands.

Noa felt each loss pass through her bones.

Her knees buckled. Evelyn caught her around the waist before she struck the floor. The movement pulled at the burns along Noa's shoulder, and white fire tore through her. She bit down on a cry. The taste of blood spread across her tongue.

"Stay with me," Evelyn said.

Her voice was close.