The Living Core's Debt

I repaired the impossible heart with my bare hands—and the coldest man in the city saw every second of it. Inspector Samuel Grey was sent to execute me for treason. Instead, he watched my blood light up the dead machine, watched the glow spread across my skin like a brand, watched me collapse as twenty years of stolen memories came flooding back. Now he knows what the Council spent decades hiding: I'm not a throwaway repair girl. I'm the living core they ripped out of their own city and tried to erase. He should turn me in. He should let them harvest what's left of me to save his precious kingdom. But every time I touch another broken engine, every time my power flares, he steps between me and the kill squads. His hand on my wrist. His body shielding mine. His voice in the dark: *"If you burn, I burn with you."* The city is sinking, the oxygen engines are failing, and the woman who erased me is coming to finish the job—but if I let Samuel unlock the core inside me, one of us won't survive the restart.