Chapter 21 · The Shadow That Wore Her Face

The first thing Lin heard was the coat breathing.

Not metaphorically. Not the soft rasp of wet fabric dragged across a chair. The black coat on Soren’s inspection table drew breath through its collar, a long, shuddering inhale that lifted the shoulders, then released it in a tremor of cold air.

Lin stood three steps away, one hand pressed against the bandage wrapped around her ribs. Beneath the cloth, the wound pulsed with every heartbeat. Her fingers were stained with ash from the memory fire. Rainwater dripped from her hair onto the floorboards of the abandoned customs office, where the Glasswater Night Market had folded itself into the city’s shadows.

Nara sat on the edge of the table.

She looked carved from moonlight and exhaustion. The fire she had swallowed no longer burned in her throat, but thin gold lines moved beneath her skin, glowing and fading with each breath. Behind her, a shadow lay across the wall.

It had her shape.

It did not have her face.

The shadow’s head tilted toward Lin. The blurred outline of its hair fell over one shoulder in exactly the way Lin remembered from childhood photographs. A familiar slope of cheek.