Chapter 58 · The Final Signature

"Put the blade down, Kane. Right now."

He kept it pressed against his palm.

Blood ran over his fingers and dripped onto the contract's black seal. The paper drank it up. Ink crawled beneath the surface.

"You heard me," I said. "Put it down."

Kane stood across the cracked stone table, his coat hanging open. His warden seal burned beneath his collarbone. The breach behind him pulsed like a second heart, shaking dust from the ceiling with every beat.

"If I don't sign the final line," he said, "Oscar gets access to the city."

"And if you do sign it?"

His jaw locked.

"You already know."

I did.

The contract had shown me enough before the breach swallowed the rest. One name would become the vessel. One body would hold the city's disaster until there was nothing left inside it but a locked door and a dead man's blood.

Kane had decided that man would be him.

I stepped around the table. "You don't get to make that choice alone."

"I'm the warden."

"You're my husband for another six days. Try acting like one."

His gray eyes cut to mine. Cold. Furious.