Long-press a paragraph to send danmaku
Evelyn grabbed Nolan by the front of his ruined shirt before he could slide off the laundry room wall.
"Don't you dare pass out on me."
His face had gone gray under the blood and soot. Black fire crawled under the skin at his ribs, thin as cracked glass, then vanished when she pressed harder against the wound.
"Wasn't planning to," Nolan said.
His voice came out rough. Like every word scraped his throat on the way up.
"Great. Then stand."
"That is, unfortunately, the part I'm having trouble with."
The old washing machines around them dripped dirty water. One of the busted ceiling lights swung over their heads, squeaking with every move. The front door was gone. Just splintered wood, cold night air, and the smell of burned bone from the curse hound she had sent screaming back through whatever hole it came from.
Evelyn looked down at the phone clutched in Nolan's hand.
Theo's face stared back at her from the screen.
Her little brother looked older. Taller. His hair had grown out dark and shaggy around his face. There was blood at the corner of his mouth. Rope bit into his wrists.
Still alive.
For now.
The message below the photo glowed in clean white letters.
MIDNIGHT MARKET. BRING KADE.
Then the second one.
COME ALONE OR THE BOY DIES.
Evelyn's fingers tightened on Nolan's shirt until the fabric tore a little.
"You know where Midnight Market is," she said.
Nolan watched her, not the phone. That annoyed her more than it should have.
"Everyone knows where it is."
"Then tell me what they want with you."
"I don't know."
She laughed once. No humor in it. "That was a stupid answer. Try again."
His jaw flexed.
"My family has enemies."
"Your family has a whole damn city of enemies. Narrow it down."
A black line pulsed under his ribs. Nolan flinched before he could hide it.
Evelyn saw it anyway.
"Sit," she said.
"We need to move."
"You need to stop leaking cursed fire all over Mara's floor. Sit."
"Evelyn—"
"Sit down, rich boy."
For one second, his eyes sharpened. Angry. Alive. Then his knees gave out.
She caught him badly, with his arm dragging over her shoulders and his weight nearly taking her down with him. He was bigger than he looked in those expensive coats. Solid. Heavy. Too warm where he pressed against her.
They hit the floor beside an overturned laundry cart.
"You always catch men like this?" Nolan muttered.
"Only the ones bleeding on my shoes."
"Lucky me."
"Don't flirt. It's embarrassing when you're half dead."
His mouth twitched.
Then another pulse went through his side, and the almost-smile disappeared.
Evelyn shoved the phone into her pocket. She pulled her little leather kit from inside her coat, dumping the contents onto the cracked tile. Salt vial. Copper wire. Three iron nails. A packet of powdered chalk. A small blade with a chipped black handle.
Not enough.
Never enough.
"Where's Mara?" Nolan asked.
Evelyn didn't look at him. "If I knew that, we'd be getting her instead of sitting here."
"Her wards were taken down from inside the pattern."
"I know."
"That means somebody had access."
"I know what it means."
"It could mean she sold you out."
Her head snapped up.
Nolan held her stare. He looked like hell, but he didn't blink.
"Say that again," Evelyn said quietly.
"I said it could mean—"
"No. I heard you. Say it again so I know you really want to start this fight while your organs are trying to catch fire."
"You don't know where she is. You don't know who removed the wards. You don't know who sent that photo."
"And you don't know Mara."
"I know people get scared. I know they sell information. I know your brother is exactly the kind of leverage someone would use to make you walk into a trap."
Evelyn picked up the copper wire and wrapped it around her fingers. Once. Twice. Hard enough that it cut into her skin.
"Mara got me out when the Guild put a knife to my throat over a bad job. She hid Theo and me for six months. She taught him how to mark a door before he opened it. She doesn't sell kids."
Nolan's gaze dropped to the wire biting into her hand.
"You believe that because you need to."
"Yeah," she said. "And you don't believe anyone because you grew up in that house."
That one landed.
His expression shut down so fast it was almost impressive.
For a second, Evelyn wanted to take it back.
Then she remembered Theo's wrists. The blood on his mouth.
No. Not taking back a damn thing.
She cut her thumb with the chipped blade.
Nolan caught her wrist before the blood could fall.
His grip was weak. Still firm enough to stop her.
"No," he said.
"Move."
"You used blood on the hound. Then on me."
"And?"
"And whoever is tracking us already has your scent in the spellwork. More blood makes it easier."
"I need to close the spread in your ribs."
"You need to get to your brother."
"I need you alive until we get there."
The words slipped out too fast.
Nolan's fingers loosened around her wrist.
Evelyn felt heat crawl up her neck. Great. Fantastic. She was not explaining herself to him right now.
"Because you're bait," she added. "Don't make that face."
"What face?"
"That smug, stupid one."
"I'm dying on a laundry room floor. I don't think smug is the word you're looking for."
"You'd be surprised what you can pull off."
She yanked her hand free and let three drops of blood fall into the chalk powder.
The white dust hissed.
Nolan swore under his breath.
Evelyn mixed the blood into a rough paste, then drew a circle over the black burn spreading from his ribs. Her fingers shook once.
She hated that he noticed.
"You're scared," he said.
"No kidding."
"Of the spell?"
"Of wasting time."
"Evelyn."
"Don't."
His hand came up anyway. It hovered near her cheek, not touching. Like he had thought better of it halfway through.
"You don't have to do this," he said.
She stared at him.
Then she laughed again, softer this time. Meaner.
"You think I have choices tonight?"
The black fire surged.
Nolan's body jerked hard. His head hit the tile. The sound made Evelyn's stomach drop.
"Nolan."
His eyes rolled back for one awful second.
The curse under his skin flared bright blue-black, burning through the chalk circle, racing across his chest toward his throat.
"Shit. Shit, no."
Evelyn slapped both hands flat against his chest.
The world snapped tight.
Heat punched through her palms.
Not normal heat. Not fire. This felt like grabbing a live wire while somebody poured ice water down her spine. Her teeth clicked together. The laundromat vanished behind a rush of darkness and screaming metal.
Images hit her in broken pieces.
A huge house with iron gates.
A little boy crying in a locked room.
A man's hand pressing a black seal into someone's chest.
Blood running down a white marble staircase.
Then Nolan.
Younger. Maybe sixteen. On his knees beside a body she couldn't see. His hands covered in blood. Someone behind him saying, Do it. Bind him before the fire takes the whole line.
Evelyn gasped.
Nolan's eyes flew open.
His hand closed over hers.
"Get out," he choked.
"Not happening."
"You don't know what you're touching."
"Yeah? Welcome to my life."
The curse fought her.
It pressed against her hands like a mouth full of teeth. It wanted her blood. Wanted the mark she had burned into Nolan two nights ago. That stupid marriage pact neither of them had asked for, locked under his skin because some old Kade magic had decided her touch counted as a vow.
The mark answered.
Pain ripped up both her arms.
Nolan made a sound she had never heard from him before. Not a growl. Not anger. Just raw pain.
Evelyn leaned closer, bracing one knee beside his hip.
"Look at me," she said.
He was shaking now. "Evelyn—"
"Look. At. Me."
His eyes found hers.
Dark gray. Wild around the edges.
"Breathe with me," she said.
"I don't—"
"Don't argue. In."
She dragged in a breath.
He followed badly.
"Again."
The black fire crawled up his throat, then stopped under her palms.
"Again."
His fingers dug into the back of her hand.
The pact mark under his shirt flashed once. Gold this time. Thin lines spreading over his chest like a brand-new scar.
Evelyn felt it answer in her own blood.
A pull. Not gentle. Not romantic. More like being tied to somebody with barbed wire and finding out they were falling off a roof.
She could feel his heartbeat.
Too fast.
Then slower.
The black fire drew back from his throat. It folded in on itself, trapped beneath the copper wire and her blood seal. Not gone. Just sleeping mean.
Evelyn finally pulled her hands away.
Her palms were red and blistered.
Nolan stared at them.
"You idiot," he said.
She sagged back on her heels. "Funny. I was going to say the same thing."
He pushed himself upright, breathing hard.
"You saw something."
Evelyn met his eyes.
"So did you."
His face went still.
There it was again. That locked door behind his expression.
"What did you see?" he asked.
"A house. Blood. You as a kid. Somebody binding you."
Nolan looked away first.
That told her enough to hate it.
"Your father?" she asked.
His silence stretched.
Outside, a car passed too slowly on the street.
Evelyn reached for the iron nails. "We can have your childhood trauma talk after we find my brother."
"It wasn't my father."
She stopped.
Nolan's voice dropped lower.
"My father was already dead."
Before she could ask anything else, a sharp knock hit the broken doorframe.
Both of them froze.
A woman's voice came from the street.
"If you two are done bleeding all over my safehouse, get outside. Now."
Evelyn shot up so fast her knee cracked against the tile.
"Mara?"
Mara Quinn stood beyond the ruined doorway in a long black coat, one hand pressed against her side. Her dark hair was half out of its braid. There was blood on her collar, and not all of it looked like hers.
She held a silver knife in her other hand.
Behind her waited a rusted delivery van with the engine running.
Evelyn crossed the room in three strides and grabbed Mara by both shoulders.
"Where the hell were you?"
Mara winced. "Nice to see you too."
"Where. Were. You?"
"Being chased through three alleys by men in masks. Sorry I didn't send a postcard."
Evelyn searched her face. The split lip. The shaking fingers. The fresh scrape over her eyebrow.
Real injuries.
Could still be a lie.
That thought made her sick.
Mara looked past her at Nolan. "He's alive?"
"Barely," Nolan said from the floor.
"Aw. That's disappointing for at least six people I know."
"Mara," Evelyn snapped.
Mara's humor dropped away.
She reached into her coat and handed Evelyn a small brass token stamped with a crescent moon.
"I found this in the alley behind the old apothecary. It was left where they wanted me to find it."
Evelyn turned it over.
A location was scratched into the back.
MIDNIGHT MARKET. EAST GATE.
Below that, one more word.
ALONE.
Nolan got to his feet using the wall. He swayed once, then straightened because apparently stubbornness was medically useful.
"They want us split," he said.
"No shit," Mara said. "And before you ask, no, I didn't remove my own wards. Somebody knew the old Guild pattern. Somebody good."
Evelyn looked between them.
"Who?"
Mara's gaze landed on Nolan.
"Could be one of his family's cleaners. Could be one of mine. Could be someone paying both sides. Tonight's getting crowded."
Nolan pulled on his coat, hiding the burned shirt and the blood at his side. His movements were stiff, but he was standing.
"We don't go through East Gate," he said.
Evelyn stared at him. "We go wherever Theo is."
"And if you walk through that gate alone, they kill you and keep him anyway."
"You don't know that."
"I know hostage work."
"Because your family does it?"
His eyes hardened.
"Because my family taught the city how."
That shut her up.
Mara opened the van's side door. "Get in. Both of you. We can argue while moving. Midnight is in forty minutes, and I would really love not to die in this neighborhood."
Evelyn didn't move.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
All three of them looked down.
New message.
No number.
No words at first.
Just a photo.
Evelyn opened it.
The picture had been taken under yellow streetlights. A brick wall. Torn wanted posters. Rusted nails hammered into the mortar.
And hanging from one of those nails was a small blue jacket.
Theo's old jacket.
The one with the patched elbow she had sewn herself when he was nine.
Under it, somebody had written a new message in thick black ink.
YOU ARE ALREADY TOO LATE.
Evelyn's breath stopped.
Then, beneath the photo, the phone began to ring.