Chapter 5

Behind her, boots pounded closer.

“Seriously?” Ivy whispered. “You point a knife at me and call that hospitality?”

Mira Quill shoved the blade harder against her skin. “You brought the Warden. Where is he?”

“Busy terrifying people.”

“Not funny.”

“Wasn’t trying to be.”

Mira dragged her inside and slammed the door. Three locks clicked into place.

Only then did she snatch the memory chip from Ivy’s hand.

“Hey.” Ivy reached for it.

Mira twisted her wrist behind her back and slammed her against the door. Pain cracked through Ivy’s shoulder.

“You want this hand attached when the bells strike again?” Mira asked.

Ivy’s cheek pressed against the rough wood. “You always knew how to welcome an old friend.”

“You stopped being my friend when you sold my brother’s name.”

The words hit harder than the door.

Ivy went still. “What did you say?”

Mira’s grip tightened. “You heard me.”

“I heard you accuse me of something I don’t remember.”

“How convenient.”

“Try me.”

Ivy stomped on Mira’s boot.

Mira cursed and loosened her hold. Ivy tore free, spun, and slapped the knife hand aside. The blade scraped across her sleeve.

Mira backed toward a table crowded with glass vials and silver memory needles. “You’ve gotten meaner.”

“I’ve had a busy week.”

“Four bell strikes. A city tear. A life-link. The Warden’s hand around your throat.” Mira’s eyes dropped to the glowing mark beneath Ivy’s collarbone. “That’s not a busy week. That’s a death sentence with extra steps.”

“Where’s the market?”

Mira gave a sharp, humorless laugh. “You’re standing in it.”

The room barely fit the shelves lining its walls. Vials shimmered with blue and red light. Each one carried a name, a date, or a warning written in red ink.

Ivy’s pulse kicked harder.

“Open the real door.”

“You don’t order me around.”

“People are chasing us.”

“People chase everyone who comes here.”

“Council hunters.”

Mira’s smile vanished.

Ivy stepped closer. “They marked my face on every gate. If they catch me, they’ll strip the link out of my body and leave me alive long enough to feel it.”

Mira stared at her.

Ivy lifted her chin. “So open the door.”

“Why?”

“I need my brother.”

“You need a miracle.”

“I’ll settle for the truth.”

A fist slammed into the other side of the door.

“Ivy Morn!” a man shouted. “By order of the Council, step away from the memory broker!”

Mira’s gaze snapped toward the locks.

Another blow shook the frame.

“Open it,” Ivy said.

Mira raised her knife. “If I open the market, you’ll owe me.”

“I already owe you?”

“You owe me for the chip.”

“I stole it.”

“You stole it from my shelf.”

“Put it on my tab.”

Mira leaned close. Her breath brushed Ivy’s ear. “Your tab is already written in blood.”

The door cracked.

Ivy reached for the knife.

Mira caught her wrist. “Don’t.”

“Then move.”

“You still trust him?”

Ivy’s throat tightened.

Mira didn’t need to say the name. She meant the man waiting somewhere behind her. The man whose heartbeat had guided Ivy through the collapsing block. The man who’d taken a burning spell through his own body because Ivy refused to let go of him.

She could still feel his hand around hers.

She could still hear his voice.

His name was gone.

Not forgotten. Gone. Scraped clean from her mind, leaving a smooth, terrifying hole.

“I trust the chain,” Ivy said.

Mira’s mouth twisted. “That’s not what I asked.”

The door exploded inward.

A Council guard lunged through the gap, sword raised. Ivy ducked as Mira hurled a glass vial.

It shattered against the guard’s chest.

Blue light crawled across his armor. His arms locked against his sides. He screamed.

Ivy seized his belt and yanked him forward. His helmet struck the floor with a brutal clang.

“Move!” Mira shouted.

She kicked the sword away and grabbed Ivy’s coat.

“There’s no door,” Ivy said.

“There is if you know what to touch.”

“Little warning next time.”

“Next time, don’t bring half the Council to my doorstep.”

“I didn’t bring them. They followed the man you think I trust.”

Mira stopped.

A second guard crashed through the ruined entrance.

Mira pressed both hands against a row of empty hooks. “Say the market phrase.”

“What phrase?”

“The one your brother taught you.”

“I don’t remember it.”

“You don’t remember anything useful.”

The guard charged.

Ivy shoved Mira aside and met him shoulder-first. Armor slammed into her ribs. Pain flashed through her side, but she wrapped both arms around his sword arm and pulled.

“Open the door!” Ivy yelled.

Mira’s fingers dug into the wall. “Say it!”

“I don’t know it!”

“Then make one up!”

The guard’s elbow smashed across Ivy’s mouth. Blood flooded her tongue.

She drove her forehead into his visor.

“Fine,” she spat. “Open, you ugly piece of—”

The wall split down the middle.

Black light poured through the crack.

The guard stumbled back. Mira grabbed Ivy and hauled her through. The wall slammed shut behind them, a sword striking stone on the other side.

Ivy landed on one knee.

Below her, the memory market stretched beneath the academy like a second city. Narrow bridges crossed a hollow packed with lamps. Buyers argued over stolen childhoods. Sellers whispered prices for first kisses, murder confessions, and names erased from family records.

Ivy barely saw any of it.

Cade stood on the bridge ahead, one hand clamped over his side.

Blood darkened his shirt.

His other hand held a short black blade pointed at the ring of market guards surrounding him.

When he saw Ivy, his head snapped up.

“Stay behind Mira.”

“I’m not taking orders from a man who keeps getting stabbed.”

“Ivy.”

The sound of her name in his mouth struck harder than the guard’s elbow.

She stepped toward him.

Cade moved first.

He crossed the bridge in three strides, caught her around the waist, and pulled her against his chest just as a bolt of white magic tore through the space where she’d been standing.

The blast shoved them into the railing.

His arm locked around her middle. His breath brushed her temple. Heat seeped through his blood-soaked shirt and into her coat.

“Did it hit you?” he asked.

“Your dramatic entrance?”

“The spell.”

“No.”

“Look at me.”

“I’m looking at the knife in your hand.”

His grip tightened. “I said look at me.”

Ivy turned her face.

He was close enough for her to see the tiny cut beside his eyebrow. His eyes stayed on hers, hard and furious. Around them, the market guards took one careful step back.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“Only where you’re holding me.”

“That’s a lie.”

“You’re very controlling for a man bleeding on borrowed flooring.”

His thumb pressed once against her ribs, checking the injury through her coat. The touch was careful. Too careful for someone who’d threatened to execute her two days ago.

Ivy caught his wrist. “Don’t touch me unless you tell me what’s happening.”

“Those guards are trying to kill you.”

“I noticed.”

“They think you opened the city tear.”

“I didn’t.”

“I know.”

She stared at him. “You know?”

“I watched you close it.”

“And then I forgot your name.”

His jaw tightened.

Mira came up behind them. “That’s because the third mark took it.”

Ivy looked down.

A fresh black bell symbol circled the inside of her wrist. Three narrow strokes around a dark center. The first two marks had burned during the city tear.

This one pulsed with every beat of Cade’s heart beneath her palm.

She grabbed his shirt and shoved him back. “What did you do to me?”

Cade barely moved. “Nothing.”

“Liar.”

“I told you the link might take a memory.”

“You said it might.”

“I was trying to keep you alive.”

“You don’t get to cut pieces out of my head and call that protection!”

The market quieted around them.

Cade’s fingers flexed at his side.

Ivy stepped into him. “Say your name.”

“Ivy—”

“Say it.”

He leaned down until his mouth was near her ear. “Cade Rourke.”

The name struck the empty place in her mind and slid off.

Nothing.

She swallowed. “Again.”

“Cade Rourke.”

“Again.”

His eyes held hers. “Cade Rourke.”

She repeated it under her breath. “Cade Rourke.”

The words felt borrowed. They belonged to the man in front of her, not to anything she knew.

Mira’s face went pale. “Stop saying it.”

“Why?” Ivy demanded.

“Because the market listens.”

A bell rang below.

The sound punched through the bridges. Every lamp flashed white. The mark on Ivy’s wrist burned so fast she cried out.

Cade caught her before her knees gave way.

“Get your hands off me!”

“Stand up, then.”

“I am standing.”

“You’re leaning on me.”

“Because your stupid mark is burning through my bones.”

“It’s not the mark.”

“What is it?”

Cade looked past her.

A thin tear had opened above the bridge. Not wide. Not yet. White light spilled through it, bleaching every face below.

Mira’s voice dropped. “The memory gate is awake.”

Cade pulled Ivy behind him.

She grabbed the back of his coat. “Don’t block me.”

“I’m not asking.”

“You don’t decide what I see.”

“I decide what kills you.”

“Then decide faster.”

The tear widened.

People screamed and scattered. Glass vials toppled from the shelves, spilling memories across the floor in blue and red ribbons. One struck a man’s boot. He dropped to his knees, shouting a woman’s name he clearly couldn’t remember.

Ivy felt the pull in her chest.

Not from the tear.

From Cade.

His heartbeat slammed against her palm when she touched his back. Fast. Heavy. Familiar.

The only thing in the entire market that still felt real.

“Cade,” she said.

He turned at once. “What?”

“I can find the gate through you.”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“I know enough.”

“You’re scared.”

His eyes narrowed. “Careful.”

“Your heart’s trying to break out of your chest.”

“That’s because you keep doing reckless things.”

“Good. Then it can keep up.”

She placed both hands against his chest.

Cade caught her wrists. “Ivy, don’t.”

“Let go.”

“The link is unstable.”

“So am I.”

“The gate will burn through you.”

“Then hold on.”

His fingers tightened around her wrists. Heat ran from his palms into her skin. His face hovered inches from hers, breath rough against her cheek.

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” he said.

“I’m asking you to trust me for once.”

“I trust you to make the worst possible choice.”

“Still counts.”

The tear cracked.

White fire dropped through the market.

Cade turned and covered her with his body. The blast struck his back and drove him to one knee.

“Cade!”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re lying again.”

“Look at me.”

Ivy seized his face with both hands. “No. You look at me.”

His pupils tightened against the light.

“Find the beat,” he ordered. “Not the tear. Me.”

“I can’t hear you over that thing.”

“Then listen harder.”

Light poured over the bridge. Heat burned through Ivy’s sleeves. Her vision filled with white shapes—doors, streets, faces, pieces of a city erased one memory at a time.

She followed the sound beneath it all.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Cade’s heartbeat.

“Look at me,” he said, voice rough. “Not the light.”

“I’m trying.”

“No. You’re looking past me.”

“It’s burning.”

“Let it.”

“You’re insane.”

“Probably.”

The next pulse slammed through them.

Cade’s grip slipped. Ivy caught his coat and held on.

Then the gate spoke.

Its voice came from everywhere at once—inside the bridges, inside the vials, inside the blank space where Cade’s name had been.

“Identity confirmed. Ivy Morn is not the Warden’s victim. She is the—”