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"Move. Now!" Lucan’s voice wasn’t a suggestion. He grabbed my shoulder and shoved me backward into the narrow mouth of a ventilation shaft just as a blast of containment magic shattered the brickwork where I’d been standing a second ago.
I hit the metal grating hard, the wind knocked out of me. Dust and rust tasted like pennies in my mouth. Before I could even gasp, Lucan was on top of me, his weight pinning me against the cold steel. He didn't just push; he crowded me, his chest heaving against mine, the smell of ozone and something dark—like scorched earth—clinging to his skin.
"Get up, or stay here and let them turn you into a charcoal briquette," he hissed. His eyes were wide, pupils blown, flickering with a strange, hungry light.
I scrambled to my feet, ignoring the sting in my palms. "Get off me! And stop acting like you're doing me a favor. You're the one with a bounty big enough to buy the whole district!"
"And you're the one chained to me," he countered, his voice dropping to a dangerous low. He grabbed my wrist—the one with the blood-contract glowing a faint, sickly crimson—and yanked me deeper into the vent. "If I go down, you go down. That’s the deal, remember?"
I glared at him, my heart hammering against my ribs. "I didn't sign a deal. You forced a contract on me while I was trying to keep my head attached to my neck!"
"Details, details." He shoved me forward again, the space so tight my shoulders brushed the sides. "Keep moving. If we hit the main junction, we can loop around to the lower conduits. Otherwise, we're trapped in a tin can."
We crawled in a suffocating silence for what felt like miles, the only sound being the rhythmic clanging of the metal beneath us and the distant, muffled shouts of the Ward Authority squads. Every time I slowed down, Lucan’s hand would find the small of my back, pushing me forward with a firmness that felt less like help and more like ownership.
"Stop touching me," I snapped, twisting around.
We were stopped in a section of the vent so narrow we were practically chest-to-chest. The air was hot and thick. I could feel the heat radiating off him, an unnatural warmth that made the hair on my arms stand up. His face was inches from mine, his gaze scanning my expression for a weakness I wasn't willing to show.
"You're shaking," he noted. A smirk touched his lips, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"I'm pissed off," I shot back. "And I'm thinking about how much easier my life would be if I just handed you over to Sera right now."
Lucan chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. "And lose your brother? Noah's a battery now, Mara. A little spark plug keeping the city's core humming. You think Sera’s going to give him back just because you played the good little informant?"
I felt the anger flare, hot and blinding. I lunged, my hand catching the collar of his expensive, ruined coat, pulling him closer until our noses almost touched. "Don't you dare use my brother to keep me in line."
"I'm not using him," Lucan whispered, his breath ghosting over my lips. "I'm reminding you of the stakes. You need me to get to him. I need you to keep this curse from eating me alive. We're a match made in hell."
He didn't pull away. For a heartbeat, the tension between us shifted. It wasn't just hate; it was a desperate, jagged kind of electricity. I could feel his pulse thrumming through the contact of our clothes, a frantic beat that mirrored my own. His eyes dropped to my mouth, and for a split second, I wondered if he was going to kiss me or strangle me.
Then, a loud *clang* echoed from the junction ahead.
We both froze. The sound of boots—heavy, synchronized boots—hit the metal grating.
"They're in the vents," I breathed, the words barely a whisper.
"Damn it," Lucan cursed. He shifted his weight, his hand sliding from my back to grip my waist, pulling me flush against him to minimize our profile. "Quiet. If they hear us, we're dead."
I held my breath, my chest pressing into his. I could feel the hard line of his muscles, the tension in his frame. We stayed like that, frozen in the dark, listening to the soldiers pass by just a few feet away. One of them stopped, the sound of a magical scanner humming through the air. A pale blue light flickered through the slats of the vent above us.
I closed my eyes, praying the blood-contract wouldn't flare up and give us away. Lucan’s grip tightened on my waist, his fingers digging into my skin. It was a possessive hold, one that told me he wasn't letting go, even if the world ended right here.
Once the footsteps faded, he didn't immediately release me. He lingered, his gaze lingering on my face in the dim light.
"You're a lot more stubborn than the reports said," he murmured.
"The reports probably said I was a failure," I replied, sliding out of his grip. "They weren't wrong. I'm a failure at everything except breaking wards."
"Good thing," he said, standing up as much as the vent allowed. "Because we're going to need every single bit of that skill if we're going to get out of Vesper Bay in one piece."
We finally reached an exit—a rusted grate that led down into a damp, smelling alleyway. Lucan kicked it open with a violent crash and hauled me out after him. We hit the wet cobblestones, gasping for air that didn't taste like old metal.
I leaned against the wall, trying to stop my legs from shaking. "Where now? You said you had a plan."
Lucan didn't look at me. He was staring up at the city skyline, where the Great Core pulsed with a sickly, golden light. He looked exhausted, the shadows under his eyes deeper than before, the curse visibly draining him.
"The plan changes," he said, his voice sounding hollow. "We need to find a way to stabilize the bond before the Authority catches our scent again. And we need to move fast."
"Fast how?" I asked, wiping grime from my forehead.
He finally turned to me, and the look in his eyes was grim. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of parchment—a fresh bounty notice that had been plastered on the walls of the alley. My heart stopped.
There, right next to his face, was a sketch of me. Not as a ward breaker, but as a fugitive. The reward was staggering. The label underneath didn't say 'accomplice.' It said 'High-Value Target.'
"What the hell is this?" I whispered, staring at my own face on the poster. "I'm not a target. I'm a nobody."
Lucan stepped closer, his shadow looming over me. "You were a nobody until you touched me, Mara. Now, you're the most wanted woman in the city. And we don't have much time to figure out why."
I looked at the clock tower in the distance. The bells were beginning to chime, signaling the start of the evening cycle.
"Why the rush?" I asked, though I already feared the answer.
Lucan leaned in, his voice a cold blade against my ear. "Because the core is failing, and the curse inside me is accelerating. We don't have months, or even weeks."
He stepped back, his expression dead serious.
"The city's got seven days before everything burns, and we're the only ones who know it."