Chapter 4

"Ivy! Please!"

I yanked against Cade's grip. "Those people are trapped."

"And if you touch it, you'll join them."

"Then let go and watch me make the mistake."

His fingers tightened around my wrist. Heat pressed into my skin. The life-link beneath it answered with a sharp pulse.

Cade's breath caught.

I felt it.

So did he.

He stepped in front of me, blocking the tear with his body. His coat brushed my knees. "You don't get to gamble with both our lives."

"You already did that when you chained us together."

"I chained you to keep your magic from tearing you apart."

"Funny. It feels a lot like being dragged toward the grave with you."

A fist slammed into the market's sealed door.

Dust rained from the ceiling. Mira shouted behind us, but the next impact swallowed her words.

Cade glanced at the door, then back at me. His jaw locked.

"The hunters will be inside in less than a minute," he said. "If they see the tear, they'll cut through everyone on the other side to close it."

I looked past him.

The boy was crying now. A woman beat both hands against the invisible barrier. Three more figures crowded behind her.

"You said you could close it."

"I can."

"Then do it."

"Not from here."

He pointed toward the floor.

A thin black line ran from the tear, slipping beneath broken shelves and overturned memory cabinets. It pulsed in time with something deep below the market.

My skin prickled.

"That line leads to the anchor," Cade said. "Your brother's memory woke it up."

"And you know where it ends?"

"I know how to find it."

"Of course you do. You always know just enough to stop me from stabbing you."

His gaze dropped to the knife in my hand. Blood from my palm had dried along the handle.

"You haven't tried hard enough."

The answer should've made me furious.

Instead, his voice slid under my guard. Low. Too calm.

He was scared.

Not of me.

Of the tear.

I pulled my wrist again. He didn't let go.

"Cade."

His eyes snapped to mine.

"If I don't go in there, those people die."

"If you go in there, you might forget why you went."

"I already forget things because of you."

That hit him.

His fingers loosened for half a second.

I tore free and stepped toward the crack.

Cade moved faster.

He caught me around the waist and dragged me back against his chest.

"I said no."

My back hit him. His arm locked across my middle—not crushing, but strong enough to leave me no room to twist away. His heartbeat thudded against my shoulder blade.

One beat.

Two.

The black line on the floor jumped with it.

I went still.

"Move," I said.

"No."

"Your heart is pulling the line."

His mouth came close to my ear. Warm breath touched my skin.

"Don't say that like you just found a weapon."

"What if I did?"

"Then you'd better learn how to hold it."

I turned my head.

We were too close. His gray eyes caught mine, hard and tired. A cut split the skin beside his mouth. His hand trembled where it rested against me.

He was holding me like I might break.

Or like he might.

"You want me to trust you?" I asked. "Start talking."

"Follow my heartbeat."

I laughed once. "That isn't talking. That's a terrible threat."

"The tear is feeding on unstable magic. Yours can track it. Mine can hold it still."

"And what happens when I follow you too far?"

"You come back when I tell you."

"You don't get to order me around."

His grip shifted from my waist to my wrist. His thumb pressed over the life-link mark.

The pulse between us flared hot.

"I do when the alternative is watching you die."

The market door boomed again.

A hinge screamed.

"Cade!" Mira shouted. "We've got maybe thirty seconds!"

"Get the children into the back vault!" he called.

"The vault's locked!"

"Break it."

"With what?"

Without looking away from me, Cade shoved a ring of black keys into my hand.

"Use the one with the red tooth."

I stared at them. "You carry keys to the memory market?"

"I carry keys to places the council pretends don't exist."

"That doesn't make me trust you."

"It doesn't have to. It has to make you move."

Another impact shook the room.

I shoved the keys at Mira. "Red tooth. Back vault. Take everyone who can walk."

Mira snatched them. "What are you doing?"

"Saving the people you sold me out to protect."

Her face tightened. "Ivy—"

"Go."

She hesitated.

Cade looked over my shoulder. "Mira. Now."

This time, she ran.

The boy inside the tear screamed my name again.

"Ivy! Please!"

My brother's voice.

I nearly stepped into the crack.

Cade's hand closed around mine. "That's not Rowan."

"You don't know that."

"I know what stolen memories sound like when they learn how to bait you."

"You would know."

His expression went flat.

There it was.

The thing he refused to say. The thing Rowan had warned me about.

Cade's heart is the lock.

Maybe Cade had been the hand holding the key.

"Did you do it?" I asked. "Did you erase Rowan?"

The tear snapped wider.

Cold air punched through the market, carrying the stink of burnt paper and iron.

Cade didn't answer.

"Did you?"

"Not here."

"That's not a no."

"Ivy, listen to me. If you want those people alive, stop asking questions for ten seconds."

"You get ten seconds." I tightened my grip on the knife. "Then I start cutting."

He gave me a sharp look. "Stay close."

"That's your big plan?"

"It's the only one that'll keep you alive."

He stepped into the tear.

For one awful second, the black edges swallowed him to the waist. His fingers stayed wrapped around mine. The life-link pulled tight between us—not like a chain this time.

Like a wire under tension.

I followed.

The market vanished.

I landed on a street full of frozen people.

Not statues. Not dead.

They were trapped halfway through running, reaching, and shouting. A carriage hung above the pavement with one wheel missing. Glass floated around it in bright, sharp pieces.

The boy stood three steps away.

He looked older now. His face blurred every time I tried to focus on it.

"Don't look at them," Cade said.

"They're right there."

"They're echoes. The real people are somewhere inside the loop."

"Then find them."

He pulled me forward.

The street bent beneath our feet. Buildings folded inward. Windows turned into black squares. Every few steps, a bell mark appeared on a brick wall that had been clean a second earlier.

One mark.

Then another.

The second split open and whispered my name in Rowan's voice.

I jerked toward it.

Cade caught my chin and forced my face back to him.

"Eyes here."

His fingers were warm against my jaw. Too warm. His thumb rested just below my cheekbone. His face was close enough for me to feel each breath he took.

"You're enjoying this," I whispered.

"You think I enjoy dragging you through a broken memory?"

"You like having me where you can control me."

"You're the one holding my hand."

I looked down.

I was.

Our fingers were locked together. I hadn't let go.

The corner of his mouth lifted. Barely.

"Still want to blame me?"

"Don't get smug."

"Then stop looking at my mouth."

I shoved his chest.

The street lurched.

His hand slid from my jaw to the back of my neck, keeping me upright. My palm caught his coat. His pulse hammered beneath it.

"You distract me again," I said, "and I break your nose."

"You keep threatening that."

"You keep giving me reasons."

A crack split the street behind us.

The frozen people began to move.

All at once, they turned toward us.

The woman from the tear stumbled forward, dragging the boy by his sleeve. A man in a torn academy coat raised a sword.

None of them had faces.

Just smooth, pale skin where their features should've been.

Cade drew his blade.

"Stay behind me."

"No."

"For once, do what I say."

"Give me one good reason."

"Because I can't fight them and keep you alive at the same time."

The faceless man charged.

Cade met him halfway.

Steel struck with a brutal crack. The impact drove Cade back, his boots scraping over the warped pavement.

I felt his heartbeat through our joined hands.

Fast.

The black line ran from his chest to the street beneath us. I reached for it with my magic and let his pulse guide me.

The world opened.

I saw the real street beneath the memory. People were trapped inside a ring of black fire. Their bodies shook, but they couldn't move. The tear had wrapped around them like a net.

"Cade! Left side!"

He ducked.

The sword swept over his head.

I thrust my free hand toward the fire.

My magic hit the ring and screamed.

Pain ripped up my arm. My knees buckled.

"Ivy! Pull back!"

"Busy!"

The ring tightened around the trapped people. A child cried out. Someone slammed into the invisible wall.

I grabbed the black line with both hands.

It wasn't a line.

It was the memory of a line. A path someone had made, then forgotten.

"Tell me what to do!" I shouted.

Cade drove his blade through the faceless man's shoulder. The figure burst into strips of gray light.

"Use my pulse!"

"I'm trying!"

"No. Listen to it."

He seized my shoulders and turned me toward him.

The space between us disappeared. His chest hit mine. His forehead nearly touched mine.

"Stop fighting the link," he said. "Let it carry you."

"That's your plan? Let the chain inside my head do whatever it wants?"

"It's not inside your head. It's between us."

"That is not better!"

"Ivy."

His voice cut through the noise.

One beat.

The line pulled.

Two beats.

The black fire loosened.

Three beats.

I moved with him.

The pain dropped from my arm into the link. Cade's body jerked. His breath broke against my mouth, but he didn't let go.

"Again," he said.

"If this kills you—"

"It won't."

"You don't know that."

"I know the lock."

Four beats.

I pulled.

The black fire split apart.

The trapped people fell onto the street. The boy crawled toward me, sobbing.

I reached for him.

Cade caught my arm.

"Don't touch the echo."

The boy looked up.

For one second, his face became Rowan's.

"He lied to you," my brother said. "The man with the locked heart—"

Cade slammed his palm against the tear.

The memory shattered.

The boy disappeared.

I rounded on him. "What the hell did you do?"

"Closed the bait."

"That was Rowan!"

"No. It wore his voice."

"You don't get to decide that!"

"I do if your brother's memory is trying to drag you into a dead loop."

The street shook again.

Bricks began sliding into the pavement. The trapped people faded, their bodies turning pale at the edges.

Cade grabbed my hand.

"We're leaving."

"They're still here!"

"They won't be if we stay."

"Then pull harder!"

"I am!"

I planted my feet.

"You said to follow your heartbeat. You never said it would erase them."

His eyes flashed. "I said I could close the tear. I never said I could save every piece of a city that's already being eaten."

"You knew."

"I knew there'd be a cost."

"And you were going to keep that from me?"

"You were busy trying to kill me."

"I can multitask."

The nearest building folded into a flat wall.

A whole row of shops vanished behind it.

The people on the street stared at the empty space, confused.

A woman grabbed my sleeve. "Where's my house?"

I looked past her.

A bakery had stood there. Blue sign. Crooked front step. The old man who gave children burnt sugar sticks.

Now there was only a blank wall.

The woman stared at it.

"What bakery?" she asked.

My mouth went dry.

Cade pulled me closer. "Don't answer."

"You remember it?"

"Yes."

"She doesn't."

"No."

"Why not?"

His gaze dropped to the mark beneath my sleeve. His fingers tightened around mine.

"Because the city isn't forgetting the bakery," he said. "It's forgetting—"