Chapter 15 · Nia's Price

Nia's hands were shaking when she broke into the contract vault.

Not fear. She didn't do fear anymore. This was pure adrenaline, the kind that came from knowing she had maybe twenty minutes before the city's blood-oath enforcers figured out someone had cracked the secondary ledger lock. The vault smelled like old ink and copper, and the walls were lined with contract scrolls that hummed faintly under her fingertips. She'd been in worse places. Done worse jobs.

But she'd never stolen the actual city ledger before.

The ledger sat on a stone pedestal in the center of the room, bound in something that looked like leather but definitely wasn't. Nia didn't want to know what it was made of. She just wanted it in her bag and herself out of this building before the wards started screaming. Her lockpicks were still warm from the vault door, and she could feel the residual magic trying to bite back at her through the metal.

"Come on," she muttered, reaching for the ledger. "Don't be dramatic about it."

The book didn't fight her.