Chapter 27 · What We Owe

"Don’t touch her." Calder’s hand locked around my wrist before I could press my palm to the contract seal.

The seal burned under my fingers. Red lines crawled across the stone floor, racing toward Nia’s body. She was on one knee inside the circle, one hand clamped over the cut in her side, the other gripping the little brass key she’d stolen from the vault.

Calder dragged me back against his chest.

His coat scraped my shoulders. His breath hit the side of my neck, hot and sharp. He had one arm across my ribs and the other twisted around my wrist hard enough to make my fingers go numb.

"Let go."

"You’ve got one second left."

"Then stop wasting it."

"Mara."

The way he said my name made my stomach drop. Not soft. Not angry. A warning from a man who had already watched too many people die.

Behind us, the vault doors groaned.

Every clock in the chamber showed a different time. One read thirteen minutes past midnight. Another spun backward.