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Vera's bleeding through her coat. I can see it spreading down her left side, dark and wet, and she's not saying a word about it.
We're four blocks from the fight. Maybe five. The alleys here twist like someone built them drunk, and every shadow looks like another Red Heron blade waiting to step out and finish what the hound started. Vera's moving fast, too fast for someone who just took a claw to the ribs, and I'm half-running to keep up.
"Slow down," I say. "You're gonna—"
"Keep moving." Her voice is flat. She doesn't look back.
I grab her shoulder. She spins on me so quick I nearly trip, and for a second I think she's about to put me through the wall. But she just stares at me, breathing hard, her face pale under the glow of the rune-lamps overhead.
"You want to stop here?" she says. "Right where they can track us?"
"I want you to not bleed out before we get wherever the hell we're going."
Her jaw tightens. She shakes me off and keeps walking.
Fine.
I follow.
The mark under my ribs is still hot, still humming, like it's waiting for the next hit. My hands are shaking. I shove them in my pockets and focus on Vera's back, on the way she's favoring her right leg now, the way her breath hitches every few steps.
She's not fine.
And she's not gonna admit it.
"Moss's place is close," she says after another block. Her voice is quieter now. "He'll patch us up. No questions."
"Moss."
"Black-market guy. Healer. He owes me."
"Everyone here owes you or wants you dead. There a third option?"
She doesn't answer.
We turn into a narrower alley, and the smell hits me first—old garbage, rust, something sharper I don't want to name. There's a door at the end, metal, no sign, just a string of glyphs scratched into the frame. Vera slaps her palm against it twice, pauses, then once more.
Nothing happens.
She leans her forehead against the door. "Come on, Moss."
I'm about to say something when the glyphs flare blue and the door clicks open.
A guy leans out. Skinny, maybe thirty, with ink-stained fingers and a scarf wrapped around his neck like he's cold in a city that never drops below seventy. He looks at Vera, then at me, then back at Vera.
"Oh, hell no," he says.
"Moss—"
"I said I was done. I said next time you show up bleeding, I'm closing the door."
"You're not closing the door."
"I'm thinking about it real hard."
Vera sways. Just a little. But I see it, and so does Moss, and his face changes.
"Damn it, Vera." He grabs her arm and pulls her inside. "You too, new guy. Move."
I follow them into a cramped room that smells like disinfectant and burnt sage. There's a table in the middle, cluttered with jars and tools I don't recognize, and a cot shoved against the wall. Moss kicks a chair toward Vera.
"Sit."
She doesn't argue. That's how I know it's bad.
Moss grabs a rag and a bottle of something clear, kneels beside her, and starts peeling back her coat. The fabric sticks to the wound, and Vera hisses through her teeth.
"Three claws," Moss mutters. "Deep. You're lucky it didn't catch the lung."
"Wasn't luck," Vera says.
Moss glances at me. "You the reason she's like this?"
"I'm the reason she's not worse," I say.
He snorts. "Sure you are."
I want to snap back, but Vera's looking at me now, and there's something in her eyes I can't read. Not gratitude. Not blame. Just... weight.
"He threw his pulse in front of me," she says quietly. "Took the hound's attention."
Moss pauses mid-pour. He looks at me again, slower this time. "You used the mark?"
"Didn't have a choice."
"You always have a choice, kid. Using that thing just means you picked the loud one."
He goes back to cleaning Vera's wound, and she doesn't make a sound. I watch the way his hands move, steady and sure, the way he mutters under his breath in a language I don't know. There's a glyph on his wrist, faint and old, and it glows every time he touches her skin.
"You're gonna need stitches," he says. "Real ones, not rune-work. This is gonna hurt."
"Always does," Vera says.
Moss pulls out a needle and thread. I look away.
The room's quiet except for Vera's breathing and the scrape of Moss's tools. I lean against the wall and close my eyes, but all I see is the hound's teeth, the mirrors cracking, the way Vera's voice broke when she said my name.
I didn't know her then.
I barely know her now.
But when I saw her go down, when I saw the future-flicker in the glass—her on the ground, her throat open, her eyes empty—I moved. Didn't think. Just moved.
The mark burned. The pulse came. And the hound turned.
"Hey."
I open my eyes. Moss is looking at me.
"You good?" he asks.
"Yeah."
"You don't look good."
"I'm fine."
He shrugs and ties off the last stitch. Vera's sitting up now, her coat draped over her lap, her shirt dark with blood and disinfectant. She's pale, but her eyes are sharp again.
"Thanks," she says to Moss.
He waves her off. "Don't thank me. Just don't come back."
"Can't promise that."
"I know." He stands and wipes his hands on his pants. "You two need to leave soon. I've got clients coming in an hour, and they don't need to see Red Heron's favorite exile sitting in my clinic."
Vera nods. She pulls her coat back on, slow and careful, and I can see the pain she's biting down.
"We'll go," she says.
She stands. I push off the wall and move toward the door.
That's when we hear it.
Footsteps. Outside. Close.
Moss freezes. Vera's hand goes to her blade.
Then a voice calls out, clear and calm and way too familiar.
"Vera Crowe. I know you're in there."
Vera's face goes white.
I look at her. "Who—"
"My sister," she says.
Moss swears under his breath.
The voice outside continues. "I'm here to take Kai Lin home. Send him out, and no one else has to bleed tonight."
Vera's hand tightens on her blade. Her jaw's locked, her breathing shallow.
I step closer. "Vera—"
"She's not alone," Vera says quietly. "If she's here, Luca sent her. Which means she's got orders."
"Orders to do what?"
Vera looks at me, and for the first time since I met her, I see something crack.
"To bring you in," she says. "Or kill me trying."