"Get your hand off me, Calder!"
His fingers didn't budge. He had me pinned to the rusted side of the corpse wagon, my back grinding against flaking metal, his hand locked around my wrist like a cuff.
"Stay still. You're bleeding through your coat," he said.
"I'm fine. Let go."
"You're not fine. You're branded." His voice dropped. Low. Flat. That Chief Judge voice that made half of Glassharbor piss themselves. His chest pressed into mine and I could smell leather, rain, that sharp ozone sting right before lightning hits. "Evelyn sees that mark? She won't buy the heart, Mara. She'll carve it out while you're still breathing."
Heat seared up my arm. The second mark was weeping straight through my sleeve. Wet. Hot. Stinking of copper.
I didn't flinch. I leaned in until my nose almost brushed his.
"Oh, so you're the hero now?" I snapped. "The big bad Judge who buries the truth in unmarked graves? Tell me, Dax — did you wipe my brother's memory too? Or was that just a freebie with the city's rewrite?"
His grip tightened. Just for a second his mask cracked. Pupils blown wide. Something flashed there — guilt? Rage? Gone before I could grab it.
"Don't push me," he said.
"I'm pushing. I've got nothing left except blood on my arm and a kill order that says I'm worth more dead!" I ripped my wrist free. My boots splashed in something gray and greasy. "Who wrote that list, Dax? Who wants the memory of the first death so bad they'd pay for my head?"
He didn't answer. He reached inside his coat and pulled out a heavy leather ledger. Didn't hand it over. Held it just out of reach.
Power move. Classic him.
"The law here isn't right or wrong, Mara," he said. "It's a contract. That heart's calling you. The vault's waking up. You walk away now? You're a beacon. Every crawler from here to the Lower Wards will come sniffing."
"So what, you're gonna lock me up for my own good?" I sneered. "Very official. Very noble."
"I'm gonna keep you alive long enough to figure out why you're the only one who remembers what I remember."
The way he said *remembers* — like I wasn't a person. Like I was a key. A puzzle he could use.
A scream tore down the alley. Not human. Wet leather ripping.
"Down!" Dax barked.
He tackled me. My back slammed into mud as a pale, too-long arm punched straight through the wagon wall above us. A corpse-runner — one of the failed ones — jaw unhinged, black sludge dripping and hissing where it hit the pavement.
"Shit!" I scrambled for the knife in my boot.
"Stay behind me!" He didn't draw a gun. He raised his hand. The Judge's ring on his finger flared — cold, white light — and he slammed his palm into its chest.
Crack. Like glass shattering.
The thing didn't fly. It came apart. Ash. A cloud of gray ash and a shockwave that knocked the air out of me.
I stared at the dust on my coat. Then at him.
"What the hell was that?"
"Contractual erasure," he said, breathing hard. Eyes still on the wagon. "Seal broke. They're leaking."
"Leaking? The dead are getting out?"
"The city's forgetting how to keep them buried." He grabbed my arm again, yanking me toward the back doors. His palm was hot. Too hot. "We move. Now. Before the rest of the swarm catches that mark on you."
I dug my heels in. Mud sucked at my boots.
"Tell me about the list first. Why is my name on it?"
He stopped. Looked at me. Grim.
"Because you're not the runner, Mara. You're the debt," he said. "Whoever signed that contract didn't pay in gold. They paid in years. In memories. And the bill's due."
My stomach dropped.
"What does that mean?"
"It means you're not stealing the heart." He leaned in, breath warm against my ear despite the freezing rain starting to spit. Too close. I could feel the heat coming off him. "The heart's stealing you."
I shoved him. Hard. My heart hammered so loud I was sure he could hear it.
"I don't believe a word you say."
"Good," he said, and that ghost of a smirk touched his mouth. "Believing me gets you killed in Glassharbor. Get in the wagon. We're going to the Lower Wards."
"Why there?"
"Because Evelyn Thorne thinks she owns the underground." His voice went cold again. Judge-cold. "I want to see her face when I bring her the one thing she's terrified of."
The back of the wagon stank. Formaldehyde and rot. Stacked coffins. Burlap sacks. I climbed in, my back to the slats, trying to ignore how the mark on my arm was pulsing. Humming. In tune with something deep underground.
Dax stood in the doorway, silhouette cut sharp against the alley light. Predator guarding prey.
"You're not protecting me," I said. "You're using me as bait."
"Maybe," he said, eyes locked on mine. "But it's the only way you get answers."
My hand slipped into my pocket. The silver heart was vibrating. Not a buzz. A heartbeat. Slow. Heavy. Thudding against my palm.
One of the sacks on the floor twitched.
"Dax?" I whispered.
He didn't hear me. He was checking the seal on the door, ring still glowing.
I leaned closer. The burlap was torn. A hand slipped out — pale, thin, knuckles I knew by heart. A hand I'd held a thousand times as a kid.
My breath stopped.
"Leo?"
The sack sat up. Slow. Milky eyes. Vacant. But when its mouth opened, the voice that came out wasn't my brother's.
It was Dax's.
"Don't let her reach the vault, Mara, or we all burn —"