“Corenza, shut up and let me fix this,” Davorin snarled, the cerulean vial already uncorked between his calloused knuckles. “No,” I rasped, blood slicking my teeth. “That’s your sister’s cure. You waste it on that bastard… I will haunt you until your hair falls out.” Across the observation deck, Morovan barely drew air. A rattle scraped from his windpipe. With every stutter of his heart, cold needles punched through my ribs, tearing the borrowed tissue of my lungs. Black rings narrowed my view. Dying twice in one month felt frankly excessive, and frankly, too exhausting to endure. From the velvet rim of my chair, a small darkness poured downward. Vex never moved with unneeded haste, yet the shadow-mink hit the marble like an oily streak, his stubby spine snapping straight. Ribbons of pitch-black mist poured from his muzzle, reeking of ozone and ancient silt. Morovan drew none of his attention. Instead, the beast bolted straight for Lyssina. The mistress had backed against the bronze blast-hatch, her lace gloves coated in Morovan's arterial spray. She raised a small nickel derringer toward the creature. “Get back, you filthy rat—” Vex clamped his needle teeth into her left ankle. A sickening sound cracked through the chamber—like two wet ropes snapping taut against an iron capstan. Lyssina screamed. It wasn't pain; it was the shrill squeal of someone having her marrow siphoned out through a straw. The murky tendril linking my sternum to Morovan snapped with a chime like broken porcelain. The tail whipped across the floor, guided by the ink spilling from Vex’s jaws, and sank into Lyssina’s flesh. The icy pressure crushed inside my chest vanished. Warmth bloomed behind my collarbone, thick and robust. Lyssina had the endurance of a healthy, pampered noblewoman who spent fortunes on pristine diets and stolen youth-salves. Her vitality surged across the fresh conduit, hitting my marrow like double-distilled plum brandy. My spine unlocked. The copper taste in my mouth faded. I slumped back against the base of the sofa, letting out a prolonged, disgusted sigh. “Gods above. My ribs ache. Never let me exert myself like that again.” Davorin froze. The glowing blue restorative remained sealed in his fist. He stared at me, then at the frantic black mink currently chewing Lyssina’s silk stocking, and finally at the mistress writhing on the tile. “What did that flea-bitten mop just do?” Davorin demanded. “Reassigned the mortgage,” I murmured, wiping my chin with a languid swipe of my sleeve. “He’s a soul-weaver breed. Very rare. Very lazy, unless food or murder is involved. I’m tied to her now.” “Which means?” “Which means if she catches a cold, I sneeze. If she rots in an airtight, heavily guarded dungeon for eighty years with three square meals a day, I live to be a peaceful, sedentary old crone.” I pointed a limp index marker toward the doorway. “Go do the violent part. I’m resting.” A savage grin carved across Davorin’s mouth. The frantic tension in his stance snapped into pure, cold precision. He tucked his sister’s medicine safely beneath his lapel, drew his heavy trench knife, and pivoted toward the door. Lyssina’s remaining four private guards kicked through the side portico, steam-carbines raised to rescue their employer. Davorin met them halfway. He wasted no seconds on elegant dueling forms. He caught the first guard’s barrel, shoved it upward into the man’s nose with a sickening crunch, and drove his blade through the knee of the second. The third fired wild; the superheated slug gouged a trough through the mahogany bar behind me, showering ice cubes onto my slippers. “Watch the upholstery!” I yelled from the floor. Davorin seized the shooter by the collar, spun him half a circle, and hurled his armored bulk straight through the decorative glass partition. The fourth guard abandoned his weapon, raised both palms, and backed out into the hallway. Davorin let him run. Instead, he grabbed Lyssina by the collar of her ruined gown and dragged her across the shattered parquet like a sack of damp grain. She clawed at his wrist, weeping mascara and curses. “You butcher! Morovan promised me the maritime accounts! You can’t touch me, I am the Countess of—” “You’re an unregistered apothecary with six pending warrants in the Western Reach,” Davorin said evenly. The pneumatic hiss of the grand doors announced the arrival of the city magistrate. Mechanized enforcers in polished graphite armor flooded the upper tier, carbines aimed, iron banners rustling. At their head strode Magistrate Varn, spectacles gleaming against his severe, waxen face. Davorin casually pitched Lyssina at Varn’s steel-toed boots. She hit the floor with a wheeze. “Take her,” Davorin instructed, wiping a speck of crimson from his cheek with his thumb. “Check her marrow. You’ll find the signature of three prohibited soul-drafts. Keep her alive. Feed her broth. If so much as an ear infection claims her, Magistrate, I will personally dismantle your precinct.” Varn stared down at the sobbing woman, then signaled his squad. Two automatons clamped brass cuffs onto her wrists and ankles, lifting her off the tiles. “She matches the manifest recovered from the lower vaults. And speaking of manifests…” Varn reached into his coat, producing the parchment Vex had passed through his digestive tract hours earlier. “The Baron’s Ledger. Fully authenticated. Davorin, the High Court has reviewed the transaction logs. Your family’s name is scrubbed from the treason rolls. You hold lawful title to the Spire.” “Delightful,” Davorin said flatly. “Now clear your tin soldiers out of my living room.” A wet, ragged cough broke the silence behind us. Morovan was still on the floor, dragging himself forward like an injured serpent. Blood pooled beneath his embroidered vest, his face white as tallow. His fingers fumbled across the floorboards, closing around a brass revolver discarded by Lyssina’s guard. His bloodshot stare locked onto Davorin’s exposed spine. “You… took… everything…” Morovan wheezed, thumbing the hammer back with a heavy metallic click. Davorin was three paces away, half-turned toward the Inquisitor, his blade still sheathed in the dead guard’s armor. I was still sitting flat on the rug, my legs stretched out, thoroughly refusing to stand. But right above my left foot, mounted into the mahogany wainscoting to control the grand ballroom illumination, sat the master winch-lever. I sighed, extended my slippered toe, and lazily kicked the iron toggle downward. *CLANG.* The ceiling mounts groaned. Three hundred pounds of black-iron chandelier fell like an anvil, whistling through the air before slamming squarely across Morovan’s outstretched legs and torso. The revolver fired harmlessly into the ceiling plaster. Morovan let out a strangled croak as the iron rings pinned him flat to the stone, utterly immobilized, screaming through cracked teeth. “Oops,” I said, resting my chin on my palm. “Gravity in this tower is terribly unpredictable.” Davorin turned around, looked at the squashed former merchant baron, then looked down at my slipper. A slow, genuine chuckle rumbled in his chest. “Remind me never to buy heavy lighting fixtures.” “Remind me to never exercise again,” I countered, leaning back until my head hit the couch cushions. “Morovan is alive, broke, publicly disgraced, and pinned beneath antique metalwork. His mistress is bound for a maximum-security medical cell where she will keep me immortal for sixty years. The broadcast went to every parlor from here to the sea gates. We won. Go pour me some wine and let me sleep for three days.” Magistrate Varn coughed into his sleeve. The graphite-clad guards remained in formation. Varn stayed put. Instead, he stepped over the shattered crystals of the fallen fixture, bypassed Davorin entirely, and stopped directly in front of my sofa. From his inner pocket, he drew a thick parchment stamped with black wax and a red skull seal. “A tidy resolution for the underworld, Lord Davorin,” Varn said, his voice flat as an iron plate. “However, our forensic scans of this young woman’s neural emissions during the broadcast match a distinct registry. One thought to be buried three months ago.” He dropped the heavy parchment into my lap. I looked down. Emblazoned across the top, above a list of high-treason capital offenses that spanned three separate canals, was my original name. “Corenza of House Valenti,” Varn murmured, gesturing for his automated riflemen to raise their sights directly at my forehead. “You are under arrest for the historic murder of the Grand Chancellor. Hands where the steam-sights can see them.”

The Shadow Transfer