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The front door of Rook Manor was already open, and that was bullshit.
Nessa stopped on the top step with one hand still on the carriage rail. The house sat black and huge above her, every window dead. No lamps. No servants rushing out. No guard at the gate.
Beside her, Dorian went very still.
The blood mark in her palm burned.
Seven.
The voice in her head was soft this time. Almost pleased with itself.
Nessa looked down at the fresh scar crossing her palm, then at Dorian. “Tell me that thing isn’t counting down in my skull again.”
Dorian didn’t look at her. His eyes stayed on the open door.
“That would be a lie.”
“Cool. Great. We’re doing honesty now.”
“Not by choice.”
The driver had vanished the second they rolled through the iron gates. Smart man. Nessa would’ve run too if she hadn’t been tied to the gloomy bastard beside her by a blood contract and a death curse.
Dorian stepped off the carriage.
His long coat moved around his boots. Black clothes, black hair, black expression. He looked like he’d been born standing in the doorway of a haunted house, judging people for breathing too loudly.
Nessa stayed where she was.
“You said there was a vault,” she said. “You didn’t say anything about walking into a dead mansion with the door wide open.”
“I didn’t leave it open.”
“Yeah, I got that part.”
He turned toward her. In the weak moonlight, his face had gone pale under the sharp line of his cheekbones.
“Stay behind me.”
Nessa laughed once. “You remember I was sentenced to die yesterday, right? I don’t really do behind anybody.”
“I’m not asking because I enjoy your company.”
“Aw. And here I thought the forced marriage was moving fast.”
His jaw tightened.
There it was. The tiny reaction he kept trying to hide.
Nessa climbed down from the carriage anyway, boots landing hard on wet stone. The manor smelled wrong. Cold ash. Old roses. And underneath that, thin but sharp, blood.
Dorian caught her wrist before she could pass him.
His fingers closed over the new mark on her palm.
Pain snapped up her arm.
Nessa sucked in a breath. “Let go.”
His hand loosened at once, but his stare didn’t.
“The contract reacts to danger,” he said.
“No kidding.”
“It’s stronger than it should be.”
“That’s comforting.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
From somewhere inside the house, glass cracked.
Both of them froze.
Then a woman screamed.
Nessa was through the door before Dorian could stop her.
The entry hall had once been expensive. She could see it under the dust and the darkness. Marble floor. Gold-veined walls. A chandelier hanging overhead like a dead spider.
Now blood ran across the white marble in a narrow line.
A maid lay facedown near the foot of the stairs.
Nessa crouched beside her, two fingers going to the woman’s neck. Nothing.
Dorian came in behind her, fast and silent. He looked down at the body, and all the color drained from his face.
“Marin,” he said.
Not loud. Not dramatic. Just her name, like it hurt to say.
Nessa looked at the woman again. Mid-fifties, maybe. Gray hair pinned up. Her throat had been cut cleanly.
“Friend of yours?”
“She raised me.”
That shut Nessa up for half a second.
Dorian knelt and touched two fingers to Marin’s forehead. His hand shook once.
Then he pulled it back and stood.
The air around him changed.
Not magic exactly. Nessa had felt enough sigils to know when a room was waking up. This was something older. Hotter. Like standing too close to an iron stove.
Dark red lines crawled under Dorian’s skin at his throat.
Nessa took one step back. “Hey. You good?”
“No.”
“Helpful.”
“Someone got inside my house.”
“Also helpful.”
He looked toward the staircase. “They’re still here.”
Nessa’s fingers went to the small blade strapped inside her sleeve. It was cheap steel, but it had gotten her out of worse rooms than this.
Dorian noticed.
“Don’t,” he said.
“You want me to clap while murderers wander around?”
“I want you not to touch anything marked.”
“I’m a sigil breaker.”
“Yes. That’s the problem.”
A slow clap came from the upper landing.
“Well,” a woman called down, “that explains why he bought himself a gutter rat bride.”
Nessa looked up.
A woman stood at the rail above them in a silver mask that covered the top half of her face. Her dress was dark green, cut close to the body, with a knife belt strapped around one thigh. She held another blade loose at her side.
Not a servant. Not a burglar.
She stood like somebody who expected a room to obey her.
Dorian’s voice went flat. “Vale.”
“Oh, you remember me.”
“I remember you running.”
The woman smiled. “And I remember you begging your uncle not to have me executed. We all get sentimental sometimes.”
Nessa looked between them. “I’m guessing she’s not here to give us a wedding gift.”
Vale’s gaze settled on her.
Even behind the mask, Nessa felt the woman measuring her.
“So this is Nessa Quill.”
Nessa hated the way she said it. Like her name had been printed on a wanted poster.
“You’ve got me at a disadvantage,” Nessa said. “I don’t know who the hell you are.”
“Vale Serrin. Former captain of the Rook guard.”
“Former because?”
“Because this family got weak.”
Dorian’s hand moved slightly, a warning for Nessa to stay back.
Vale laughed at him. “Still pretending you can protect people, Dorian? That’s sweet.”
Her fingers snapped.
The chandelier dropped.
Dorian shoved Nessa sideways.
Marble exploded under them.
Nessa hit the floor hard enough to bite her tongue. Dust filled her mouth. Something heavy smashed against her shoulder. She rolled, coughing, and saw Dorian on one knee near the stairs.
A thin black dart stuck out from his side.
“Dorian!”
He ripped it free.
Blood soaked through his shirt.
Vale came down the stairs without hurry. Her boots clicked over broken crystal.
“That’s night venom,” she said. “Not enough to kill you fast. I didn’t want fast.”
Dorian’s breath caught.
The red lines under his skin spread higher, curling toward his jaw.
Nessa scrambled up and grabbed his arm. His body was burning hot.
“What did she hit you with?”
“Don’t touch it,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Yeah, I’m not really taking medical advice from the guy leaking blood on the floor.”
Vale stopped three steps away.
She had a second blade in her hand now. Short. Bright. The edge glistened wet and blue-black.
“Your husband’s curse is doing most of my work,” Vale said. “But I wanted to meet the woman he threw his name away for.”
“I didn’t marry him for his name.”
“No?” Vale tilted her head. “Then what did he offer you?”
Nessa’s silence was answer enough.
Vale smiled wider. “A pardon. Access to the old vault. Maybe some sad little promise about your missing brother.”
Dorian’s head snapped up.
Nessa felt it through the contract. A violent spike of fear. Not hers.
“You know about my brother?” she asked.
Vale ignored her.
“He lies beautifully, doesn’t he?” she told Nessa. “That’s the Rook gift. Make you think you’re special while they hide the knife behind their back.”
“Vale,” Dorian said.
His voice had dropped low.
The heat around him made the dust tremble.
Vale’s smile faded a little. “Don’t do that. You know it makes the curse hungry.”
Nessa looked at him.
“You said you were cursed,” she said. “You didn’t say you turn into a furnace when you’re pissed.”
“Later,” he muttered.
“Sure. Put it on the list.”
Vale moved faster than Nessa expected.
One second she was three steps away. The next, she had Nessa by the hair, yanking her backward, and the poisoned knife pressed into Nessa’s palm.
The blade bit skin.
Nessa hissed.
Vale’s mouth brushed close to her ear.
“Go on,” she whispered. “Put it in him.”
Dorian took one step forward.
Vale pressed harder. Blood slid down Nessa’s fingers and over the knife handle.
“Another step,” Vale said, “and I open her throat.”
Dorian stopped.
The room went quiet except for Nessa’s breathing.
The knife sat ugly and cold in her hand. The poison on the blade gave off a bitter smell, like burnt almonds and grave dirt.
Nessa knew that smell.
Not the venom itself. The carrier oil.
She’d seen it once in a dockside gambling den, painted into a ward meant to stop healers from pulling poison out of a victim. Black reed oil. It clung to blood. It traveled through magic.
And carved along the base of the blade, almost hidden by gore, was a tiny etched sigil.
Not a killing mark.
A siphon.
Interesting.
Vale shoved Nessa forward.
“Do it.”
Nessa stumbled to one knee beside Dorian.
His eyes met hers.
For all his attitude, he looked bad. Sweat shone on his forehead. His lips had gone gray. The red curse-lines at his neck pulsed with every rough breath.
“Don’t,” he said.
Like he thought she needed to hear it.
Like he thought she might actually stab him.
That pissed her off more than Vale’s knife at her throat had.
Nessa grabbed the front of Dorian’s shirt and pulled him closer.
His gaze sharpened.
“What are you—”
“Shut up and trust me for ten seconds.”
“I don’t—”
“Yeah, well, welcome to marriage.”
She drove the poisoned blade into his side.
Dorian made a sound like he’d been punched straight through the chest.
Vale laughed.
Nessa twisted the knife.
Not deeper.
Sideways.
The sigil at the blade’s base scraped across the dart wound.
Then she slammed her bleeding palm over Dorian’s blood.
The blood contract woke up.
Pain tore through her hand so hard her vision flashed white.
The mark in her palm opened like a second mouth.
Blood rushed across her skin, hers and his, dragging the blue-black poison with it. The venom lifted in thin dark threads from Dorian’s wound and crawled over Nessa’s fingers.
Vale stopped laughing.
“What are you doing?”
Nessa bared her teeth. “Breaking your toy.”
The poison hit her blood mark.
Fire raced up her arm.
She nearly screamed. Her stomach twisted. The whole room tilted sideways.
But the siphon mark kept pulling.
Dorian grabbed her wrist. “Nessa. Stop.”
“No.”
“It’ll kill you.”
“Then you better figure out that vault real damn fast.”
The last of the venom tore free from his side and slammed into her palm.
Her mark flared bright red.
The poison burned away with a sharp hiss.
Nessa fell back on her ass, gasping. Every nerve in her arm felt scraped raw.
Dorian caught her before her head hit the marble.
For one second, he held her against his chest.
His shirt was soaked with blood. His heart hammered under her cheek.
“You stupid woman,” he said, rough and low.
Nessa swallowed against the sour taste in her mouth. “You’re welcome.”
Then Dorian looked past her.
His face changed.
Vale had her own knife out.
Dorian moved.
Nessa barely saw it happen.
He set her down, crossed the distance, and caught Vale’s wrist before she could throw. Red light burst from his hand. Vale screamed as blood ran from her nose and ears.
He twisted.
Her arm broke with a wet crack.
Vale dropped the knife.
Dorian kicked it away and drove her into the wall hard enough to crack the marble behind her.
“You killed Marin,” he said.
His voice didn’t sound human anymore.
Vale coughed blood onto his coat. “She picked the wrong side.”
Dorian’s hand closed around her throat.
Nessa pushed herself up, one hand braced on the floor.
“Dorian.”
He didn’t hear her.
Or maybe he did and didn’t care.
Vale’s boots scraped frantically over the marble. Her face turned dark red beneath the silver mask.
Nessa looked at the dead maid near the stairs. Then at Dorian.
He was shaking again.
Not from weakness this time.
“Dorian,” she said louder. “Don’t give her what she wants.”
His fingers tightened.
Vale made a broken choking sound.
Nessa limped closer. “If she wanted you dead, she wouldn’t be standing here talking. She wants you angry. She wants the curse chewing on you.”
That got through.
Dorian’s head turned a fraction.
His eyes were almost black.
For a second, Nessa thought he might throw her across the room too.
Then he released Vale.
She crumpled to the floor, clutching her ruined arm.
Dorian took two steps back from her. Blood ran from his nose now. He wiped it with the back of his hand like it meant nothing.
Nessa bent, picked up Vale’s fallen knife, and kicked it under a broken side table.
“Okay,” she said, breathing hard. “Nobody kill anybody for, like, thirty seconds.”
Vale laughed.
It came out wet.
Nessa looked down at her.
The assassin was staring at Nessa’s palm.
At the blood still smeared there.
Vale’s smile came back, slow and awful.
“Oh,” she whispered. “That’s why.”
Dorian went still again.
“What?” Nessa asked.
Vale started laughing harder.
Blood spilled down her chin. She didn’t seem to care.
“The purge already started,” she said. “And they don’t even know what they’ve got yet.”
Nessa’s stomach dropped.
“Who’s they?”
Vale looked straight at her, eyes bright behind the silver mask.
“You, little bride.” She coughed, then grinned. “You’re the key.”
The front doors slammed shut behind them.
Every lock in Rook Manor clicked at once.