Chapter 18 · A Name on Loan

The wall breathed.

Not metaphorically. Not in the way old stone settled beneath rain or fire. The cracked Sanctum wall drew in a long, wet breath, and every candle along the corridor bent toward it.

Noa felt the inhale in her teeth.

The woman inside the contract opened her eyes.

They were the color of drowned silver.

Evelyn's hand tightened around Noa's. Her gloves had burned away at the fingertips, and her palm was slick with blood—some of it Noa's, some of it her own. The contact should have hurt. Instead, it was the only thing in the corridor that still felt real.

Behind them, bells began to ring across the city.

One. Two. Three.

Then every bell in Veycross answered.

The Master Contract shuddered overhead. Black script spilled across the fractured ceiling, racing through the stone like veins filling with ink. Faces appeared between the letters: merchants, children, old women leaning from windows, guards at street corners. One by one, their mouths formed the same sentence.

Where is Noa Vey?

The question rolled through the Sanctum and out into the city.

Noa's knees buckled.

Evelyn caught her before she struck the floor. "Stay with me."

"I am.