Chapter 35 · The Vey Ledger

The trial archives had no windows.

Nora noticed that first because she could still feel the arena moving above them—the distant groan of floating ballast, the tremor of locked gates, the muffled roar of a city discovering that its dead prince had returned. Down here, beneath the execution bureau, the walls swallowed every sound.

Only the archive lamps remained awake.

They burned with a thin green flame behind iron cages, casting long bars of light across shelves packed with sealed verdicts, confiscation records, bloodline registers, and the names of people Asterfall had decided were no longer allowed to exist.

Nora pressed her burned fingers against the cold stone and tried not to look at Kane.

That was impossible.

He stood three paces away, one hand braced against a row of cabinets, the other clamped over his broken left gauntlet. Blue light leaked between his knuckles in weak, irregular pulses. His face had gone pale beneath the grime and blood. The arena had stripped away his disguise.