Chapter 9 · Brassgate Wants Her Head

"That's your face up there." Calder yanked me into the mouth of a loading dock before the patrol swept past. His stone hand clamped over my wrist, the cuff chain rattling between us. "On every ward-screen in the city."

"I noticed." My blood-mark was burning across the sky in letters ten stories high. Thief. Seraphine's voice had echoed through every broadcast relay in Brassgate, calm and certain. The woman who stole the ward-core. Mara Voss.

"You notice they're not mentioning me?" Calder's wings scraped the brick behind us. "Funny how I went from prime suspect to footnote."

"Shut up." I peered around the dock's edge. Three enforcers were checking the alley mouths, audit-lances glowing blue. "We need a skycar."

"We need new faces."

"I'll settle for wheels and a five-minute head start."

Calder laughed, low and bitter. "You really think we're getting out of this?"

I looked at him. His left wing had a crack running through the primary bone. His claws were still red from the core chamber. And he was smiling like a man who'd already picked his gravestone.

"We're not dead yet," I said.

"Give it an hour.