Chapter 20 · When the City Goes Dark

The lights go out three blocks from the river.

Not the streetlights. Everything. The glow from the contract wards carved into every doorway, the shimmer on the bridges, the faint pulse that runs under the cobblestones when the blood oaths renew at dawn. All of it just stops.

Mara feels it first in her teeth. A vibration that's been humming there since she was sixteen, so constant she forgot it was there. Now it's gone. The silence in her jaw is louder than any scream.

Julian stops walking. His hand goes to his chest. "What—"

"Shut up." Mara grabs his wrist and drags him into the nearest doorway. It's a bakery, closed for the night, but the door's unlocked because nobody locks doors in Greyhaven. The wards do that. Did that.

She shoves him against the wall and listens. Outside, someone's yelling. Then more voices. Then running.

"The contracts," Julian says. His voice is tight. "They're failing."

"No shit." Mara's pulse is hammering. Her brother's name is carved into her heartbeat and she can feel it now, feel the weight of every oath in the city pulling at her like fishhooks.