Chapter 53 · The Second Seal

"Let her go!"

Kane slammed his good hand into the copy's throat before the thing could pull its blade free.

It wore Kane's face.

But when it smiled, Oscar Venn's voice came out.

"You still don't understand, Warden. She isn't your wife. She's the replacement. The breach knows the difference."

The crack beneath my ribs clenched.

Not my heart. Not exactly.

Black fingers seemed to hook around every beat, squeezing one pulse at a time. My knees hit the fractured stone. Blood ran hot from my shoulder, soaked through my sleeve, and dripped into the glowing lines beneath me.

"Evelyn!" Kane's voice cut through the ringing in my ears. "Look at me. Don't look at it."

"Hard to do when it has your face."

His jaw locked.

He shoved the copy against a slab of black stone. Blood leaked from the wound in his side—the wound the copy had given him—but Kane drove his elbow into its chest like pain belonged to somebody else.

The copy smiled with his mouth.

"There he is," it said. "The man who lets women die for a locked city."

"Shut up."

"Ask him what the second signature says.