Chapter 18 · No Lock Stays Safe

The clock on Julian's chest ticked down to two minutes and fifty-three seconds.

Mara couldn't look away from it. The numbers glowed green against his torn shirt, pulsing in time with her own heartbeat. Every tick felt like a knife sliding between her ribs.

"What happens at dawn?" she said.

Julian didn't answer. He was staring at the body that had fallen from the gallows. The frost kept spreading from where Mara had jammed the cold key into the ground, crawling up the execution platform's legs like white veins. The wood groaned. Cracked. Another chunk of the structure broke off and hit the cobblestones.

Elias stood ten feet away, his judge's coat flapping in the wind that shouldn't exist. His execution contract was still disintegrating in his hand, flaking apart like ash. He looked at the corpse wearing his face. Looked at Mara. His expression was blank.

"That's not me," he said.

Mara's laugh came out wrong. High-pitched. "Yeah? Because it's got your scar. Right there." She pointed at the dead man's jaw.