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“Don’t turn it,” Julian said.
I already had the brass key half an inch from the black mark climbing his throat.
The letters on the key had burned into view under my thumb. My mother’s handwriting. Slanted. Fast. Like she’d written it while somebody was pounding on a door.
DON’T OPEN IT FOR A CROSS.
I looked from the key to Julian.
He was pale under the dirt and blood. His shirt collar hung open where Sera had cut it, and the curse mark spread under his skin in ugly black branches. It started at his ribs now. Crawled over his chest. Reached toward his collarbone like it knew exactly where his heart lived.
“Little late for that advice,” I said.
“Nia.” His voice came rough. “Put it away.”
Sera grabbed my wrist before I could answer. Her fingers were cold and hard around my arm.
“Both of you need to stop touching cursed things,” she said. “That includes each other.”
“Great plan,” I snapped. “You got one where my brother isn’t being dragged around by Court thugs?”
Her jaw tightened.
That hit. Good.
The room was the back office of an old funeral home, because apparently Nightport had run out of normal places to hide. We’d crashed through the basement door ten minutes ago after the enforcers tore apart the safehouse. The dead flowers in the hall smelled like wet dirt and cheap perfume. Somewhere upstairs, a pipe knocked every few seconds.
Julian sat on the edge of a metal prep table, one hand braced beside him. Blood had soaked through the bandage at his side.
I didn’t care that he looked like death with expensive cheekbones.
Okay. I cared a little.
That was the problem.
I pulled my wrist free from Sera. “My mother left this key. It reacts to his curse. It says don’t open something for a Cross. And he knows where the vault is.”
Julian’s eyes met mine.
Gray. Tired. Way too calm for a man with black veins eating toward his heart.
“You think I brought you here to use you,” he said.
“I think you’ve lied to me since I met you.”
“I didn’t set that fire.”
“You were there.”
His mouth went flat.
That wasn’t a denial.
Sera looked between us. “What fire?”
“None of your business,” Julian said.
“Funny,” I said. “That’s what he says when it’s definitely my business.”
A sharp crack sounded upstairs.
All three of us froze.
Not the pipe.
Footsteps crossed the hall above us. Slow. Heavy. Not trying to hide.
Sera pulled her gun.
Julian pushed himself off the table and nearly folded in half.
I caught his elbow before he hit the floor. His arm was hot. Too hot. The curse mark under his collar had moved another inch while we argued.
He looked down at my hand on him.
Then at the key clenched in my other fist.
“Don’t,” he said quietly.
“Don’t what?”
“Start trusting me because I’m dying.”
I let go of him so fast he staggered.
“Trust you?” I hissed. “I need you breathing because you’re my only map to Evan. That’s it.”
“Sure.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“That stupid rich-guy little smile.”
His mouth twitched despite himself. “You notice my smiles?”
Sera made a sound like she regretted every choice that had brought her here.
Then the basement door rattled.
Once.
Twice.
The old lock screamed under pressure.
I stared at it.
“Oh, come on,” I muttered. “That lock is seventy years old. Have some respect.”
A thin blue line slipped under the doorframe.
Sera swore. “Binding wire.”
Julian’s head snapped up. “Get away from it.”
Too late.
The blue line rose off the floor like a live thing. It whipped around the door knob, then shot toward me.
I dove sideways.
It sliced through the prep table where I’d been standing. Metal shrieked. A bright blue burn cut across the steel.
Julian grabbed the back of my coat and dragged me behind a row of old storage cabinets.
“Is that supposed to be a bullet?” I asked.
“No,” Sera said. “Bullets are nicer.”
The basement door exploded inward.
The blast threw dust and wood splinters through the room. I covered my face. My ears rang.
Two people stepped through the wrecked doorway.
Court enforcers.
White masks. Black coats. Silver chains looped around their wrists. The kind of chains you wore when you wanted someone to know you enjoyed dragging people around.
The taller one tilted his mask toward Julian.
“Lord Cross,” he said.
Julian went rigid beside me.
Nobody had called him that before.
The enforcer’s voice came flat through the mask. “By order of the Vesper Court, you are to be taken alive.”
The second enforcer lifted a hand.
Blue light gathered in his palm.
“And the locksmith?” I asked.
The first mask turned toward me.
“Her hands are required.”
Well. That was not comforting.
Sera fired first.
Her shot cracked through the basement. The bullet hit the closest enforcer in the shoulder, but the man barely moved. Blue light flashed over his coat. The bullet dropped to the floor with a useless little ping.
“Seriously?” I said.
“Run,” Sera barked.
That part I could do.
I grabbed Julian’s hand and hauled him toward the far wall. There was an old body lift tucked behind a curtain, the kind used to move coffins from the basement to the chapel. Rusted rails. Narrow platform. One busted control panel.
Perfect.
I shoved the curtain aside.
Julian stared at the lift. “That’s your plan?”
“You got a better one?”
“Yes. Several.”
“Cool. Tell me after we’re not getting kidnapped.”
The lift gate had a cheap padlock on it. I pulled my pick roll from inside my boot.
My hands shook once.
I hated that.
Not fear. Not exactly.
Anger. Too much of it. Evan was out there. My mother’s warning was on a key in my hand. Julian Cross was bleeding all over a funeral home, and now the Court wanted my hands.
I slid in a rake pick.
Click.
The padlock opened.
Behind us, Sera cursed.
A blue chain snapped around one of the storage cabinets and yanked it across the floor. It slammed into the wall hard enough to crack plaster.
“Move!” she shouted.
I shoved Julian through the lift gate.
He caught my arm before I climbed in. “Nia.”
“What?”
“The vault isn’t just a vault.”
“Fantastic. Tell me more while the murder cult is shooting magic at us.”
His grip tightened. “It was built for bloodlines. Vale and Cross. Your mother knew that.”
The words hit me so hard I almost dropped the key.
“My mother knew your family?”
“Yes.”
“You said you didn’t know anything about her.”
“I said I didn’t know what happened after the fire.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.” His eyes held mine. “It isn’t.”
A blue shot smashed into the lift frame.
Julian shoved me down.
The blast hit him across the back.
He made a sound through his teeth. Short. Mean. Not a scream.
But I saw his whole body jerk.
The curse mark flared black beneath his shirt.
“Julian!”
“I’m fine.”
“You are literally smoking.”
“I said I’m fine.”
The lift groaned and lurched upward when I slammed my palm against the emergency lever.
Below us, Sera fired again. One of the enforcers raised a silver chain. It snapped around her ankle and ripped her off her feet.
“Sera!”
She hit the floor, rolled, and cut the chain with a knife that glowed blue at the edge.
“Go!” she yelled. “Get to the church door!”
The lift crawled upward so slowly I wanted to kick it.
Julian leaned against the back wall. Blood ran from beneath his shirt now. Darker than it should’ve been.
I grabbed his jacket and pulled it open.
The black mark had jumped.
It wasn’t crawling toward his heart anymore.
It had reached the center of his chest and curled around an old scar there, thin and pale, like somebody had once tried to cut the curse out of him with a knife.
“Oh, hell no.”
“Nia.”
“No, shut up. Don’t tell me it’s okay.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
The lift shook.
A silver chain had wrapped around the bottom of it.
The platform jerked backward so hard I slammed into Julian. His arms came around me by reflex. One hand hit the wall beside my head.
For half a second, we were pressed together in the dark metal box.
His breath touched my temple.
My stupid body noticed everything. The heat coming off him. The blood smell. The way his fingers shook against the wall.
Then another jerk slammed us sideways.
“Hold on,” he said.
“To what?”
He looked at the lift cable above us.
I followed his gaze.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Julian, if you cut that, we fall.”
“It’s a two-story lift.”
“It’s a coffin elevator in a building made before electricity. That is not better.”
The silver chain tightened beneath us.
Metal screamed.
Julian reached inside his sleeve and pulled out a thin black blade. It didn’t shine. It ate the light around it.
“That’s not a knife,” I said.
“No.”
“What is it?”
“A bad idea.”
“Honestly, that tracks.”
He drove the blade into the lift cable.
The cable snapped.
We dropped.
My stomach shot into my throat. I grabbed Julian around the neck because apparently dying made me clingy.
The lift crashed one floor down.
My teeth cracked together. The gate blew open. We rolled out into a dark hallway full of overturned chairs and dead flower arrangements.
The church level.
I lay there for one stupid second, staring at a stained-glass angel with half its face broken off.
Julian rolled onto his side beside me.
“You okay?” he asked.
I pushed myself up. “You ask that after dropping me in an elevator?”
“You’re alive.”
“Barely.”
He smiled again.
I wanted to punch him.
I also wanted to make sure he didn’t stop breathing.
Which was worse.
A crash came from below.
They were climbing after us.
Sera appeared through the blown-open lift gate a second later, limping hard. Blood ran down one side of her face.
“Church door,” she said. “Now.”
We ran through the chapel.
Pews lined both sides, dusty and crooked. Somebody had stripped the altar bare years ago, but a brass cross still hung on the wall behind it. Julian’s eyes flicked toward it, then away.
“What?” I asked as we moved.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t start that again.”
He didn’t answer.
Of course he didn’t.
At the side door, Sera shoved a key into the lock.
It didn’t turn.
She swore and tried again.
Behind us, blue light spilled across the chapel floor.
“I’ve got it,” I said.
Sera stepped aside.
The lock was old brass, thick pins, swollen from damp. Not hard. Just stubborn.
I pulled my tools out.
Julian stood at my back, breathing too fast.
“You have thirty seconds,” Sera said.
“Then stop counting out loud.”
The first pin lifted.
Second.
A blue chain whipped over the pews and caught Julian across the ribs.
He grunted. The chain yanked him backward.
I spun around.
“Julian!”
He caught the pew with one hand. The enforcer at the end of the chapel pulled again, boots braced wide.
The chain dug into Julian’s side.
The curse mark flared under his shirt.
Then the second enforcer lifted his palm toward me.
Blue light built there. Hot enough that I could feel it on my face.
Julian saw it.
He let go of the pew.
The chain ripped him sideways, straight into me.
He turned in the air.
The blue shot hit him in the back.
For one second, the whole chapel went white.
Julian slammed into the door with me under him.
His body went still.
“No,” I said.
The word came out small. Wrong.
I shoved at his shoulders. “Julian. Move.”
His face was pressed against my neck. His breath came hot and broken.
“Nia,” he rasped.
“What? What?”
“Open the door.”
“You got shot.”
“Open. The damn. Door.”
Sera fired over us. “Nia!”
I rolled Julian off me and jammed my pick into the lock again.
My fingers were slick now.
I thought it was sweat.
Then I looked down.
Blood. Julian’s blood. All over my hands.
The pins blurred. I forced myself to breathe.
One. Two. Three.
The lock gave.
I threw the door open.
Cold night air hit my face.
Sera dragged Julian through first. I followed, kicking the door shut behind us. A blue chain struck the wood so hard the whole frame shook.
Outside, the alley ran between the funeral home and an abandoned bakery. A black sedan waited at the curb with its engine running.
Sera shoved us toward it.
“Get in.”
Julian stumbled once.
I caught him again.
This time he didn’t make a joke.
That scared me more than the enforcers.
We piled into the back seat. Sera got behind the wheel and peeled away from the curb just as the church door burst open behind us.
A blue blast hit the pavement where the sedan had been.
The car fishtailed.
Sera cursed, corrected, and shot us through two red lights.
Julian lay half across the seat, his head against my thigh. His eyes were shut. His skin felt burning hot through his shirt.
“Hey,” I said, tapping his cheek. “Stay with me.”
His eyelids lifted a little.
“You always this bossy?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Then his eyes closed again.
“Julian.”
Sera checked the mirror. “Don’t shake him. The curse is reacting to the Court binding.”
“Then fix it.”
“I used the last of the stabilizer downstairs.”
I stared at her. “You had one job.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was busy not getting my head cut off.”
The brass key burned in my palm.
I’d forgotten I still had it.
The warning on its surface had changed.
The letters from my mother faded one by one, leaving fresh scratches across the metal. Not words this time.
A tiny shape.
A pocket watch.
Its face had been blackened, like it had gone through a fire.
Under it was an address.
I knew the street.
Everybody in Nightport knew it.
Ash Street.
The block where my family’s building burned down.
Julian’s eyes opened again. He saw the key in my hand.
His face changed.
Not much. Just enough.
Fear.
Real fear.
“What is it?” I asked.
He tried to sit up.
Sera hit the brakes so hard I slammed into the front seat.
“What the hell?” I yelled.
She pointed through the windshield.
At the end of the empty street, hanging from the rusted gate of an old warehouse, was a burned pocket watch.
It swung in the headlights.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Julian grabbed my wrist before I could open the car door.
“Don’t go near it,” he said.
Then the watch stopped.
A dark drop slid from its cracked face and landed on the brass key in my hand.
The blood sank straight into the teeth of the lock key.
I knew that blood.
I’d seen it on Evan’s shirt the night he disappeared.
My brother’s blood was jammed inside the key.