Chapter 14 · One Day Burns

"Don't touch that bell!" Mara drove her shoulder into the copy before its hand reached the bronze rim.

The thing wearing Calder's face slammed her into the white wall. Pain snapped through her ribs. Its fingers closed around her wrist, right over the brass contract anchor.

"Give me the anchor," it said in Calder's voice.

"Go to hell."

Behind them, the real Calder caught Tomas by the collar and dragged him out of the copy's reach. His other hand held a black iron blade against the copy's throat.

"Mara," he said, low and hard. "Look at me. Not it. Me."

The copy smiled with Calder's mouth. Same cut at the corner of his lip. Same dark eyes. Same voice that had ordered her arrest, threatened her life, and once shoved her behind a locked door because three armed collectors were waiting outside.

That last memory hit wrong.

Calder had never smiled when he was angry.

This one did.

Mara twisted her wrist and drove the brass anchor into the copy's jaw. The metal struck with a sharp crack. The copy's grip loosened.

"You smile when you lie," she snapped.

The copy staggered back.