Chapter 17 · The Living Blank

The door Sora opened was not a door.

It was a wound in the alley wall.

Black stone peeled apart beneath the rain, revealing a narrow passage filled with pale blue light. The air pouring through smelled of wet iron, old paper, and something sweetly rotten. Beyond the opening, shelves rose into darkness on both sides, packed with glass cylinders and brass memory spindles. Tiny sparks moved inside them like trapped fireflies.

Eve stood at the threshold with the death letter clenched in her fist.

The last sentence still crawled across the page in ink the color of dried blood.

THIRD AWAKENING PENDING.

Behind her, the alley flashed white as lightning struck a rooftop weather vane. For one instant, she saw silhouettes at both ends of the street—tall figures in gray coats, their faces hidden behind clockwork masks.

Contract hunters.

One of them raised a hand.

The rain froze in midair.

“Kieran,” Sora said. Her voice cracked. “Now.”

Kieran did not move. Blood soaked through the bandage at his ribs, sliding beneath his coat in a dark, steady line. His eyes remained fixed on Eve, not the hunters, not the impossible corridor.

“You asked me to kill you,” he said.