Chapter 7 · The Hour They Stole

"She's in the archive," Mara said, and Jace felt the floor drop out.

"What?"

"Your sister. Lily. She's in the reset archive." Mara's hand was still on his wrist from when she'd pulled him back from the edge of the platform. The train had dumped them at a station that shouldn't exist, and now she was telling him the one thing he'd been running from for six months.

Jace yanked his arm free. "You're lying."

"I'm not." Mara turned the tablet so he could see it. A manifest. Names in columns, dates beside them, all within the last year. Halfway down: Lily Mercer, 16, flagged for debt auction, transferred to Night Audit holding 03/14.

His vision narrowed. "That's five months ago."

"Yeah."

"She's been calling me. Every week."

"No," Mara said quietly. "Someone's been calling you. Using her voice."

Jace grabbed the tablet, scrolled. The list went on. Forty names. Fifty. More.

"They're all down here," Mara said. "Everyone who disappeared in the reset hour. They're not dead. They're being held."

"Why?"

"I don't know yet. But the reset doesn't just roll the city back. It needs something to anchor it.