Chapter 8 · A Deal Signed in Blood

The mirror exploded outward and Kai didn't think. He grabbed Vera's wrist and pulled.

Glass chased them down the hall. Behind them someone yelled orders and boots hammered marble but Vera was already two steps ahead, yanking him left through a door he hadn't seen. It slammed shut. She twisted something on the frame and a bolt slid home with a sound like breaking teeth.

"That buys us thirty seconds," she said. Her voice was level but her hand was still locked around his forearm. "Maybe forty if Luca's people are slow."

Kai's chest burned. Not the mark this time. Just his lungs trying to catch up with the last sixty seconds of his life. The room was narrow, stone, cold. Some kind of servant passage. No windows. One other door at the far end, cracked open enough to show flickering orange light.

"They saw it," Kai said. "Everyone in that hall saw the mirror call me fake."

"Yeah." Vera let go of his arm and moved to the far door. She checked the gap, then looked back at him. "You regretting the family reunion yet?"

He almost laughed.