Chapter 13 · Bounty Bride

The bounty went live while they were still underground.

Evelyn heard it first. Not the words, just the sound. A thousand phones going off at once, street level, rattling through the storm drains above their heads. Notification after notification, layered like gunfire.

Nolan stopped walking. His hand went to the wall.

"That's not good," Evelyn said.

He didn't answer. The black mark had crept past his collarbone now, fingers of shadow crawling up toward his jaw. Every few minutes he'd stop and breathe through his teeth, like the curse was chewing on something vital.

She still had the brass key in her pocket. It was warm. Not hot, just body-warm, like it had a pulse.

"We need to move," she said.

Nolan pushed off the wall and kept walking. His shirt was stuck to his back with sweat and ash. The tunnel sloped upward, narrow and low, following the old sewer lines that fed into the Cinder District. Evelyn had mapped this route two years ago, back when she thought she might need to disappear fast.

She just didn't think she'd be dragging a dead heir with her.

The tunnel opened into a maintenance shaft.