Chapter 11 · The Balance That Cannot Dream

The first bell rang beneath the market.

It did not sound like metal. It sounded like a city taking one enormous breath.

Every lantern along the avenue flared at once. Blue fire poured through paper skins, through glass cages, through jars where small golden memories twisted like trapped fish. The light struck the wet stones and turned the street into a second sky. Beneath their boots, something vast shifted in the dark.

Nara staggered.

Lin caught her by the elbow before she hit the ground. Nara's coat was cold enough to burn through Lin's fingers. Under the sealed black fabric, there was no heartbeat. No pulse. Only a faint, uneven vibration, like a plucked wire buried beneath bone.

"Don't touch her," shouted a vendor from behind a counter of bottled laughter. "The balance has been called. The balance must be weighed."

"She isn't merchandise," Lin snapped.

The vendor smiled with a mouth full of pearl buttons. "Everything is merchandise after midnight."

A thread of light slid across the street and wrapped around Nara's wrist. She gasped.