Chapter 10 · Untitled Chapter

"Give me your hand, Lucan, or get out of my way."

He caught my wrist before I reached the vault door.

His fingers closed over the black veins burning beneath my skin. The curse flared. Pain shot up my arm and bit into my shoulder.

"You don't get to order me around in my own archive," he said.

"Your archive is trying to kill me. That gives me voting rights."

The lower vault stood three steps away, sealed beneath six bands of black iron. Red runes crawled over the metal. Every few seconds, one flashed with my name.

NORA BELL.

Not the name I used now. The name printed on the execution order nine months ago.

Lucan's thumb pressed against my pulse. His eyes moved from the letters to my face.

"The door knows you."

"It knows the woman Bram Calder put on the stage. That's not the same thing."

His grip tightened. "You said your gift could read curse residue. You didn't say the vault would answer to you."

"I didn't know it would."

That was a lie. In my last life, I'd opened this vault with Bram at my side.