Chapter 25 · When the City Goes Dark

The contract broke without making a sound.

For one impossible second, the world simply held its breath.

Nara’s knife remained buried in the transparent heart of the contract. Hairline fractures raced across the floating sheets of glass, branching through clauses, signatures, and names that had been written in every language the city had ever forgotten. Behind them, the market’s countless lamps flickered like trapped stars.

Then the glass exploded.

Not outward. Inward.

Every shard folded into the contract’s center, collapsing into a single black point. The point swallowed the light above them, the red glow beneath the market stalls, the pale reflections in the flooded street. It swallowed the sound of the crowd.

And then the entire city went dark.

Lin felt Nara’s hand jerk inside hers.

“Nara!”

The darkness hit like a physical thing. It pressed against Lin’s eyes, slipped beneath her skin, and filled her ears with a low, underwater hum. Somewhere nearby, Soren swore. Tavi shouted something that vanished beneath the crack of breaking wood.

Lin tightened her grip.

For half a heartbeat, she felt Nara’s fingers.

Cold. Thin. Real.

Then they began to fade.

Lin dropped to her knees on the wet glass pavement.