"Don't even breathe, Voss. One twitch and I'll make sure you never walk again."
Cold steel pressed into the skin behind my ear. I didn't move. I couldn't. Calder Rane had me pinned against a damp brick wall, his body a heavy, suffocating weight crushing the air out of my lungs. He smelled like ozone and expensive tobacco—High District shit. Not the kind of scent you find in the Lows, where I spend my life running packages.
I looked down. Jax was at my feet. Or what was left of him. My best courier contact for three years was now a heap of shredded fabric and leaking blood. Between his dead fingers sat the black ring I was supposed to deliver.
The ring that just turned my life into a crime scene.
"I didn't do this," I spat. My voice cracked. "I just got here. He was already like this."
Calder leaned in. His breath was hot against my neck, a sharp contrast to the freezing rain misting around us. He didn't believe me. Why would he? I was a street rat with a courier mark on my wrist and a corpse at my feet.
"You're lying," he whispered. Not a guess. A verdict. "You've got that look, Lena. The one that says you're calculating how many seconds it takes to stab me in the ribs while I'm talking."
"Maybe I am," I snapped. I tried to shift my weight. "Maybe I'm wondering why the city's most feared spell officer is playing dress-up in the slums on a Tuesday."
He chuckled. It was a low, dangerous sound that vibrated through my spine. His hand slid from my shoulder to the back of my neck, squeezing just enough to force my head back. He made me look at him. His eyes weren't human—swirling storms of grey and silver. High-tier spell caster.
"Wrong answer," he said. "Now, where's the ring?"
"Right there!" I yelled, jerking my chin toward the body. "On the floor! Grab it and get off me!"
*Wail.*
A siren screamed at the end of the street. Blue and red lights flickered through the fog. The City Guard. They were sealing the perimeter. If they found me here, I wasn't going to a cell—I was going to the block.
"Damn it," Calder muttered. He didn't let go. Instead, he shoved me harder against the wall, his chest pressing into mine. The friction of his heavy tactical coat against my thin jacket felt like a brand. "If the Guard catches us, I'm not protecting you. I'll hand you over as the primary suspect just to clear my paperwork."
"You're a real prince, Rane," I hissed. "Why do you even care about a piece of jewelry?"
"It's not jewelry, you idiot. It's a key."
He released my neck, but only to snatch the ring from Jax's cold hand.
*Boom.*
A shockwave of black lightning ripped through the alley. The air screamed. It hit me like a physical blow, throwing me back against the bricks.
Then, the world shifted.
I didn't fall. A violent jerk pulled me forward, slamming me right back into Calder's chest. But this time, it wasn't gravity. A shimmering, translucent chain—dark as ink and humming with sick energy—snapped into existence. It wrapped around my wrist and his, binding us together with a metallic clink.
Like a prison door closing.
"What the hell is this?" I screamed. I yanked my arm back. Calder stumbled with me, his face twisting in shock and fury.
"Get it off," he growled. His voice dropped an octave. "Voss, if this is some low-life trick, I will skin you alive."
"I don't know what it is!" I yelled back. "Look at it! It's coming from the ring!"
He looked. The black ring was fused to his finger, glowing with a rhythmic, heartbeat-like pulse. Every time it beat, a jolt of electricity shot up my arm and settled in my chest.
It wasn't just a chain. It was a tether. I could feel his anger—a hot, searing wave—and he could probably feel my blinding panic.
"Get back," he ordered. His hand flew to the spell-blade at his hip. "I'm cutting this thing off."
"Wait!"
Too late. He swung the blade. Void-steel, capable of slicing through dimensions. But as the edge hit the chain, there was no spark. No cut.
Instead, a scream tore through the air. It came from me.
I collapsed to my knees. A white-hot bolt of agony seared through my wrist, exactly where the chain touched. I gasped for air, vision blurring.
Calder froze. He looked at his wrist, then at me. He didn't look concerned. He looked horrified.
"You felt that?"
"Of course I felt it, you psychopath!" I choked out. "You just tried to cut my arm off!"
"I didn't touch you," he said, his voice tight. He stepped closer, boots crunching on gravel. He grabbed my chin, forcing me up. Those silver eyes searched mine, analyzing. "The ring. It's a Sympathetic Bind. We're sharing a nervous system. If I hurt the chain, you feel the pain. If you die..."
"I don't want to talk about me dying," I snapped, batting his hand away. "I want to know how to break this before the Guard shoots us both."
"Seal the exits!" a voice barked from the mouth of the alley. "No one leaves until we find the courier!"
Calder cursed in a language I didn't recognize. He looked at the exit, then at me.
The power dynamic had shifted. He still had the badge, but he couldn't kill me without killing himself. And I... I was the only thing keeping him from a scandal that would end his career.
"Fine," he whispered, his face inches from mine. I could see the gold flecks in his iris. "We move. Now. If you trip, I'm dragging you by the hair."
"I can walk, Rane."
"Prove it."
He grabbed my hand—not gently—and yanked me toward the back of the alley. We moved in a clumsy, synchronized dance. Every time I lagged, he jerked me forward. Every time he sped up, I nearly face-planted into the mud.
We scrambled over a rusted fence, the chain clinking. I could feel his heart racing—or was that mine? The tether was blurring the lines. A sudden surge of his strength, a cold confidence that didn't belong to me, made my head spin.
We dove into the shadows of a collapsed tenement just as a searchlight swept the area. We were pressed tight in the ruins, the darkness swallowing us. I could feel the heat radiating off him, the hard lines of his chest against my shoulder.
"Listen to me," he whispered, his lips almost touching my ear. "This ring isn't just a bind. It's a countdown. I can feel the core of the city reacting to it."
"A countdown to what?"
He didn't answer. He looked back toward the alley.
Behind us, the corpse of Jax—dead for twenty minutes—suddenly lurched. He snapped upright like a puppet on a string. His eyes flew open. No pupils. Just a void of shimmering black ink.
Jax's jaw dropped open. A voice like a thousand grinding stones echoed directly into my mind.
"Thirteen hours," the corpse whispered. "Thirteen hours until the—"