Chapter 31 · The Core's Favorite

The black stuff on Kane's chest didn't wait for a name. It slid toward Elara's hand like it already knew the token better than she did.

She slammed her palm over the fourteenth mark. The metal bit her skin. Hot. Wrong.

"Don't," Kane said. Voice wrecked. "If that thing drinks, I go with it."

"You're already leaking." She shoved her other hand against the hole in his shirt. The black didn't care. It threaded between her fingers, thin as oil, hungry as a fuse.

The street around them was people getting twelve funerals dumped into their heads at once. A man screamed a kid's name until his voice broke. A woman on her knees counted bodies that weren't there. Somebody kept saying midnight like saying it would rewind the last ten minutes.

It didn't.

The transit pillars pulsed red. One. Then two.

Nora stood under the nearest one with her burned hands out, like she could talk steel down. Sparks still jumped off her knuckles. "That's a claim mark. That's a damn claim mark. The line just signed a new owner."

"Who?" Elara said.

Nora laughed once. Ugly. "Look at his chest and take a guess."

Kane's mouth twitched.