Long-press a paragraph to send danmaku
"Avery Vale."
The copper throats screamed her name before the street tried to swallow her boots.
"Avery Vale."
She slammed into a stall, caught herself on a rack of hanging knives. Kellan's sword clanged against the stones. Around her the market folded inward like a fist.
Shop fronts slammed shut. Balconies bent. Pipes burst from the walls and spat black water across the cobbles.
"Move!" Sera grabbed her coat and yanked her sideways. "Stop staring at the city if you wanna stay alive."
"I'm not—"
"You're walking backward."
Avery looked down. Her heels were sliding toward the copper-root door behind them. It had pushed through the market wall without breaking a brick. Just grew there, wide and wet-looking, its seams flexing like lips.
Kellan shoved between them and the door. His face was pale from the curse backlash but his hand found the hilt at his hip.
"Not that way," he said.
"You got a better way?"
"Several."
"Great. Pick one."
A bell rang above them. The crowd split.
A man in a red market coat strode through with six ash-armored hunters behind him. Silver case chained to his wrist. Black key painted across the lid.
Sera swore. "That's not good."
Kellan's eyes narrowed. "Who is he?"
"The man who sells things people are desperate enough to steal."
The vendor stopped ten feet away. Broad shoulders, clean-shaven, smiling like he'd already won. A copper plate covered his throat. It didn't speak for him. Just pulsed.
"Lady Vale," he called. "You've made a mess of my market."
Avery glanced at the twisted stalls. "Your market started trying to eat me."
"An unfortunate reaction to an unregistered presence."
"Tell that to the teeth."
His smile thinned. "You were warned not to touch the merchandise."
"What merchandise?"
He lifted the silver case.
The lock clicked open by itself.
Inside lay a key.
Avery stopped breathing.
Longer than her hand. Dull gray metal. Narrow bow shaped like an eye. Three ridges along the shaft, tiny red marks glowing like embers in the cuts.
The black key at her belt twisted toward it.
Kellan saw. His jaw tightened.
Sera stepped in front of Avery. "Close the case, Brann."
"Why?" The vendor tilted his head. "Our guest's been searching for an exit key since she arrived. I'm offering her one."
Avery looked at the key. "You're charging for it?"
"Everything has a price in Ashback."
"Name yours."
Brann laughed. "Your freedom, perhaps."
The hunters raised their hooked spears.
Kellan moved closer. His shoulder brushed hers. "That's a false key."
The vendor's eyes flicked to him. "Gatekeeper. You should be kneeling."
"I've had a bad day."
"You have a command."
Kellan's copper throat mark flashed under his skin. His fingers jerked toward his sword.
Avery caught his wrist.
His whole body locked.
For one ugly second she saw the curse trying to pull him away from her. His pupils narrowed. Teeth clenched hard enough to crack.
"Don't," she said.
"I'm trying."
Brann watched them with open interest. "How touching. The hound's grown attached to his target."
Avery shoved Kellan's arm down. "Keep talking and I'll show you what attached means."
The vendor pointed at her. "There. You heard that. She threatens me after trespassing, destroying property, and attempting to steal my key."
A murmur ran through the market.
"Thief."
"Outsider."
"False-maker."
The word caught. More voices joined.
"Thief."
"Thief."
Avery's stomach tightened. Her injured side burned beneath her shirt. Blood had soaked through the bandage again, warm against her ribs. The market pressed in from every direction. Stalls inching closer. Wheels turning without drivers. Shutters opening to reveal watching faces.
Sera leaned toward her. "We need to leave before they decide to hang you."
"Where?"
"Still working on that."
"Work faster."
Brann raised the silver case high enough for everyone to see. "This key opens the Inverted Prison. The district below the city. The place where forbidden materials are stored."
Kellan looked at him. "No merchant gets access to that district."
"Maybe not a merchant." Brann tapped the case. "But a buyer with the right key can go anywhere."
Avery's gaze stayed on the metal. "You said it opens the prison."
"I did."
"What's it cost?"
"Your name, signed in blood."
"Funny. The city already has it."
The copper throats around the market shouted louder.
"AVERY VALE."
The sound hit the walls and came back twice as loud. Cobblestones jumped beneath her boots.
The false key answered.
Its red lines glowed.
Avery felt the black key at her belt pull hard enough to bruise her hip.
Kellan grabbed her shoulder. "Don't touch it."
"I wasn't planning to."
"You were looking at it."
"I look at lots of things before I break them."
"That's not reassuring."
Brann's smile returned. "You know what it is, then."
Avery stared at him. "I know it's lying."
The market went quiet.
Even the buildings stopped moving.
Brann's expression didn't change but the pulse in his throat plate sped up.
Sera saw it too. "Avery."
"Three ridges," Avery said. "Wrong spacing. The bow's decorative and the teeth are cut for a lock that doesn't exist."
Brann's fingers tightened around the case. "You're a locksmith. Not an authority on Ashback relics."
"No. I'm an authority on bad work."
A few people in the crowd snickered.
Brann's face darkened. "You broke into my stall."
"You displayed a key in front of me."
"You tried to take it."
"I didn't touch it."
"You touched the case."
"Because you put it in my way."
"That's not how theft works."
"Then you should stop selling stolen things."
The vendor's smile vanished.
He snapped his fingers.
The hunters rushed forward.
Kellan moved first. Kicked a wooden crate into the nearest spear, twisted around the shaft, drove his elbow into the hunter's helmet. Metal rang. The hunter dropped.
Avery ducked under another hook. It tore through a lock of her hair and scraped her ear. She swung Kellan's sword up, not at the hunter's body but at the chain around Brann's wrist.
The blade struck.
The chain snapped.
Brann shouted and stumbled back. The silver case flew from his hand.
Avery caught it.
The instant her fingers closed around the case the market floor opened beneath her.
Black iron teeth rose from the gap.
Kellan seized the back of her coat and hauled her sideways. The teeth clamped shut where her legs had been.
"Still think it's not trying to eat you?" he asked.
"Busy!"
A hunter slammed into him from behind. They crashed against a stall. Copper hooks swung over Kellan's head.
Avery ran.
Not away. Toward Brann.
The vendor had drawn a short pistol from under his coat. Barrel made from bone. Pointed straight at her chest.
"Drop the case," he said.
"Sure."
She threw it at his face.
Brann flinched. Avery came in behind the case, drove her shoulder into his ribs, knocked him flat. The bone pistol fired into the air. A hot bolt punched through a roof sign.
The false key spilled across the stones.
It landed beside her hand.
Avery picked it up.
The key was warm. Not furnace-hot. Body-warm.
And it had a heartbeat.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The black key on her belt jerked again.
Kellan tore free of the hunter and shouted, "Avery, put it down!"
Brann rolled onto his back. "Don't listen to him! That key's your only way into the prison!"
Sera kicked the bone pistol away. "He's lying."
"Everybody keeps saying that," Avery snapped. "I'd love a little proof."
Brann reached for the key.
Avery closed her fist around it.
A thin metal line opened across the key's bow.
The thing split like a seed.
Inside were three nested layers of teeth, each one turning in a different direction. First layer cut in long clean strokes. Second had tiny triangular notches. Third was almost invisible, a pattern of six shallow marks repeated around the core.
Avery's anger went cold.
She knew those cuts.
Not the style. The hand.
"Nolan," she whispered.
Kellan reached her. "What?"
She held the broken key between them. "He made this."
Brann's face lost its color.
Avery looked at him. "You said it was an Ashback relic."
"I said it opens the prison."
"You said it was made here."
"I never—"
"You implied it."
"That's not the same thing."
"It is when you're trying to sell a lie."
The three layers clicked into place.
Avery turned the center tooth with her thumbnail. The mechanism resisted, then gave with a tiny snap. A seam appeared along the key's shaft.
She knew that seam too.
Nolan had taught it to her in the back room of his shop, years ago, while laughing at her first attempt to forge a spring lock.
Never hide one secret where one break can expose it, he'd said. Three layers. Three lies. If they find the first, make them work for the rest.
Her throat tightened.
"Nolan framed me," she said.
Sera went still. "Avery…"
"He used a three-layer concealment pattern. He was the only person I ever saw use it."
Brann pushed himself up on one elbow. "You don't know what you're talking about."
Avery ignored him.
She jammed the tip of Kellan's sword into the seam.
The false key shrieked.
Not metal. A voice.
Every hunter stopped.
The market leaned closer.
Avery twisted the blade.
The key cracked open.
A black shard sat inside its hollow center. Copper wire wrapped around it in tight loops. A tiny glass bead pulsed at the middle.
Then the bead lit.
A man's voice whispered from inside the key.
"Avery."
Her fingers went numb.
Kellan stared at the shard. "Who is that?"
She couldn't answer.
The voice came again, soft and familiar, like Nolan was standing behind her at the workbench with a cup of cold coffee in one hand.
"Bring her to me, and I can make Ashback spare you."
Brann smiled.
The copper-root door behind them opened wide.
Not toward the street.
Toward the market.
Toward Avery.
And from the dark space beyond it, Nolan laughed.
Kellan's hand closed around her wrist. "We're leaving."
"He's here," she said.
"I know."
"He set me up."
"I know."
"He's been here the whole time and he—"
The door spat something onto the stones.
Not Nolan.
A body.
Small. Pale. Copper wire threaded through its ribs.
Avery's breath stopped.
She knew that coat.
She knew those boots.
The girl from the alley. The one who'd tried to warn her about the false marker.
Her eyes were still open.
Brann stood. Dusted off his coat. "The master locksmith sends his regards."
Kellan pulled Avery back. "Don't look."
"She tried to help me," Avery said.
"I know."
"She's dead because of me."
"Not yet you're not."
The copper-root door pulsed.
Nolan's voice drifted out again, closer this time.
"Come inside, Avery. We have so much to discuss."
The market began to move.
Not the stalls.
The ground.
The stones beneath her boots tilted toward the door.
Kellan swore and grabbed her arm. "Sera!"
"On it!" Sera vaulted over a collapsed cart and slammed her palm against the nearest copper throat. The plate shrieked. The ground stopped tilting.
For half a second.
Then the entire market lurched.
Avery stumbled. Kellan caught her. The false key slipped from her hand and skittered across the stones.
It rolled straight toward the open door.
Toward Nolan.
"No," Avery said.
She tore free of Kellan's grip and dove.
Her fingers closed around the key.
The door slammed shut.
The market went silent.
Avery looked up.
Brann was gone. The hunters were gone. The body was gone.
Only Kellan and Sera remained, both staring at her like she'd just grown a second head.
"What," Sera said slowly, "did you just do?"
Avery opened her hand.
The false key sat in her palm.
But it wasn't false anymore.
The three layers had fused into one. The red marks were gone. The copper wire had burned away.
What remained was a single tooth, clean and sharp, with Nolan's maker's mark etched along the base.
And beneath it, in tiny scratched letters:
*Find me in the Inverted Prison before the city does.*
Kellan crouched beside her. His face was pale. "Avery."
"I see it."
"That's not an exit key."
"I know."
"That's bait."
"I know."
Sera knelt on her other side. "So what do we do?"
Avery closed her fist around the key.
Her side burned. Her ear was bleeding. The black key on her belt was hot enough to scorch her hip.
But for the first time since she'd woken up in this city, she knew exactly where to go.
"We take the bait," she said.
Kellan stared at her. "That's a terrible plan."
"You got a better one?"
"Several."
"Then pick—"
The ground beneath them cracked.
Not a tremor.
A split.
A line of black opened across the market square, wide enough to swallow a cart.
And from the dark below, something screamed.
Not copper.
Not human.
Something older.
Kellan grabbed her coat. "Move!"
They ran.
Behind them the crack widened.
Ahead of them the market folded shut like a book.
And somewhere in the dark, Nolan was still laughing.