"Sweet time? I've been running since Evelyn put your face on every wall in the city! You know how hard it is to scrub bounty ink off a wall? It's hard!" He looked at Cael's throat, at the faint black band. "Is that... did you collar him? Mara, you kinky genius."
"Shut up," I said.
Cael didn't lower the knife. "Who is he?"
"My oldest ally," I said. "And my biggest pain in the ass. Toby, this is Cael Rook."
"Yeah, I know who he is. The whole undercity knows who he is. The guy who controls every pact and debt from here to the river." Toby took a step closer, then thought better of it when Cael stared at him. "Okay, so. You need a hole. I have a hole. Safe room, old ward line, no Crown eyes. But..."
"But what?" I said.
Toby rubbed his neck. "But nothing's free, right? Especially tonight. Evelyn locked the whole grid. My hole is the only hole not crawling with marshals. So we do a deal. A real one."
Cael's jaw tightened. "What kind of deal?"
Toby pulled out a folded paper. It wasn't paper. It was pact skin. Pale, thin, with faint lines that moved if you looked too long. "Memory binding. Underground deal. You both sign, you share the hideout, you share protection. No one can sell the other out. Not to Evelyn, not to anyone. You break it, the skin burns the memory right out of your head. And maybe your life with it."
"No," I said instantly.
"Mara," Toby said, "you don't have a choice. You walk out there, you get shot. He gets shot. I get shot for helping you. This is the only way I can hide you without Evelyn ripping it out of my brain later."
Cael took the pact skin from him. His fingers didn't shake. "Cost? Be specific."
"Cost is simple," Toby said, suddenly not grinning. "You lie to each other about anything big while you're under my roof, the bond knows. The skin knows. It'll brand you. You try to hand the other over to the Crown, it fries your memories. You try to kill each other under my roof, it stops your heart for ten seconds. Long enough to think about your choices."
"And if we don't sign?" I asked.
"Then I can't let you in," Toby said. "And you die in that tunnel. Sorry, Mara. I love you, but I love breathing more."
I looked at Cael. He looked at me. That stupid warm pulse was still humming between us where he'd touched me.
"You first," I said to him.
"Ladies first," he said.
"Scared I'll read your dark secrets, night lord?"
"Scared you'll bore me with yours, spellbreaker."
He held out the knife, handle toward me. "Blood. Just a thumbprint. It only takes a drop."
"You do it," I said. "If you're lying, I want to watch you burn first."
He huffed, but he pressed his thumb to the blade, quick, and pressed it to the skin. The pact glowed red where he touched it. It drank the blood.
"Your turn," he said, holding it out. Too close. I had to step into him to reach it. His coat brushed mine. His eyes dropped to my mouth for half a second then snapped back up.
I cut my thumb. Pressed it down next to his. The skin flared, hot, and a thin line of light shot between our two prints, tying them together.
For a second I saw something that wasn't mine. A dark room. A boy's voice yelling Cael's name. Pain, sharp and old.
Cael sucked in a breath. He'd seen something of mine too. My hands, younger, holding a Crown badge.
"What the hell was that?" I whispered.
"Memory bleed," Toby said, snatching the skin back before we could touch it again. "Told you. Binding. Now you're stuck with each other. Congrats, you're married. Let's go before the marshals find the grate."
He led us deeper, to a steel door covered in old wards that buzzed faintly. Inside was a cramped room. One cot. One table. One buzzing bulb. Safe, maybe. But there was only one way out.
Forced proximity didn't cover it. We were locked in a box together.
Cael sat on the edge of the cot like he owned it. I stayed by the door.
"You saw something," he said quietly.
"So did you."
"You were Crown," he said. It wasn't a question.
"You had a brother," I shot back.
His face went blank. Cold. "Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't dig in my head, Voss. We signed for protection, not for therapy."
"Fine. Don't dig in mine."
Toby was fiddling with a beat-up radio on the table, trying to get a signal. Static, then Evelyn's voice again, then something else. A chime. A clock.
Toby went pale.
"Oh no," he said. "Oh no no no."
"What?" I said.
He turned the radio up. It wasn't Evelyn. It was the city bell. The eclipse bell. It wasn't supposed to ring for three more days.
It was ringing now.
"Toby?" Cael stood. "What is that?"
Toby looked at us, at my arm where the black veins had started crawling again, faster now, and at the faint collar still around Cael's throat that pulsed in time with the bell.
"They moved it," Toby whispered. "Evelyn moved the eclipse. It's not in three days. It's tonight. And that bond you just made permanent? If you don't figure out how to control it before that bell stops—"
The bulb above us flickered. The pact skin on the table flared bright red. And on the far wall, the old bounty board Toby used for news lit up, fresh ink bleeding across it by itself, spelling out two names in big black letters.
MARA VOSS — ALIVE. CAEL ROOK — DEAD BY DAWN.
Toby grabbed my wrist, his fingers ice cold.
"Mara, listen to me, that mark hits your heart before dawn and you two don't get to choose anymore. The bond goes—"