Long-press a paragraph to send danmaku
"Stop fidgeting."
Selene's voice cut low, clipped. She walked half a step ahead, shoulders back, like she owned the narrow alley. Maybe she did. Memory Collectors didn't need to own anything. They just took.
Riven pressed his wrist tighter against his ribs. Didn't help. The contract mark pulsed brighter, silver light crawling up his forearm, and down here in the lower market every set of eyes that landed on it stayed too long.
"It's glowing," he hissed. "People are staring."
"Then stop lying."
"I'm not—"
The cuff flared hot enough to make him bite down on the rest of the sentence. Fine. He had been lying. To the fruit vendor two stalls back, to the girl selling fake travel papers, to himself about how badly he wanted to run.
Selene didn't slow down. "We're close. Orin's shop is three blocks east, tucked under the old transit line."
"And if he's not there?"
"Then we have seventy-one hours to find someone else who can crack an ember without killing you." She glanced back. Her eyes were pale gray, the kind that didn't blink much. "Or me."
Right. The contract bound them both. If he burned, she burned.
Riven had spent his whole life slipping out of binds, but this one had teeth.
They turned into a wider street—more like a canyon between two gutted buildings, windows covered in tarp and spray-paint tags. The crowd here moved differently. Faster. Heads down. No one made eye contact, and no one stopped moving.
Patrol territory.
Riven's pulse kicked up. He pulled his sleeve down over the cuff, but the light bled through the fabric.
"Selene."
"I see them."
Two Collectors in slate-gray coats stood at the far end of the street, scanning the crowd. One held a needle gun. The other had a tablet, probably loaded with faces flagged for extraction.
Riven had never been flagged. He'd made sure of that. No records, no real name, no memory trail that led anywhere useful.
But now he had a glowing contract on his wrist and seventy-one hours before his brain turned to smoke.
"We go around," Selene said.
"There's no around. This is the only route to Orin's block."
"Then we go through."
She started walking, and Riven had no choice but to follow. The cuffs didn't let them get more than ten feet apart. He'd tested it back in his room. At twelve feet, the silver had started cutting into his skin.
They were halfway down the street when the kid ran past them.
Small, maybe nine or ten, barefoot, clutching something wrapped in cloth. He didn't look back, just ran, and Riven knew that kind of running. That was the running you did when you'd stolen something you couldn't afford to give back.
The Collectors noticed.
One of them shouted. The kid veered left, toward an alley, but two more Collectors stepped out from a side passage, cutting him off.
Trapped.
The kid stopped. His chest was heaving. He pressed the cloth bundle to his ribs like it was the only thing holding him together.
Riven should've kept walking. Should've turned his face away, pulled his hood up, followed Selene past the scene like everyone else in the market was doing.
But the kid looked up, and Riven saw his own face.
Not literally. But close enough. Same hollow cheeks, same too-old eyes, same look that said he'd already decided what he was willing to lose.
"Riven." Selene's voice had an edge now. "Don't."
He was already moving.
"Hey." Riven raised his voice, stepping between the kid and the nearest Collector. "He's with me."
The Collector was a woman, mid-thirties, with the kind of face that had forgotten how to smile. She looked Riven up and down, then at the glowing cuff on his wrist.
"Contract mark," she said. "You're bound."
"Yep."
"To a Collector."
"Also yep."
Her eyes flicked past him, landing on Selene. Recognition slid across her face, followed by confusion.
"Marr," the woman said slowly. "What're you doing down here?"
Selene's jaw tightened. She didn't answer.
"He stole an ember fragment," the woman continued, nodding at the kid. "We're bringing him in for extraction."
"He's a child," Riven said.
"He's a thief."
"So am I. You gonna shoot me too?"
The Collector raised the needle gun. Not at Riven. At the kid.
"Step aside," she said.
Riven didn't move. His heart was slamming against his ribs, and the cuff on his wrist was burning so hot he thought the skin might blister, but he didn't move.
The Collector's finger twitched toward the trigger.
Selene stepped forward.
She didn't say anything. Just moved between Riven and the gun, one hand raised.
"Marr," the woman said, voice tight. "Move."
"No."
The word hung in the air like a match strike.
The Collector stared. "You're disobeying a retrieval order."
"I'm executing my contract," Selene said evenly. "He's bound to me. You touch him, you breach my claim."
It was a lie. Riven knew it was a lie. The contract didn't work like that.
But the cuff on his wrist didn't flare. It dimmed.
The Collector hesitated. Her partner stepped closer, muttering something Riven couldn't hear. After a long moment, the woman lowered the needle gun.
"This goes in my report," she said.
Selene didn't blink. "Fine."
The Collectors stepped back. The crowd, which had frozen, started moving again. The kid bolted, disappearing into the alley before anyone could stop him.
Riven let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.
"Move," Selene said quietly. "Now."
They walked fast, winding through three more alleys before Selene finally stopped in front of a rusted door wedged under a section of collapsed overpass. She knocked twice, paused, then knocked three more times.
Nothing.
She knocked again.
The door cracked open. A man's face appeared in the gap, sharp-featured and annoyed.
"Closed," he said.
"Orin Quill," Selene said. "I need an extraction read."
"I said closed."
"I'll pay triple."
The man's eyes narrowed. Then he looked at Riven, at the cuff on his wrist, and his expression shifted.
"That's a live contract," Orin said slowly. "And it's burning dirty."
"That's why we're here," Riven said.
Orin stared at him for a long moment. Then he opened the door.
Inside, the shop was smaller than Riven expected. Shelves lined the walls, crammed with glass vials, labeled memory chips, and tools Riven didn't have names for. A workbench sat in the center, covered in wire and half-assembled machinery.
Orin locked the door behind them and gestured at the bench. "Wrist."
Riven held out his arm. Orin pulled a small device from his pocket, something that looked like a jeweler's loupe fused with a scanner. He held it over the cuff, and a soft hum filled the room.
The silver mark pulsed.
Orin's face went pale.
"Where'd you get this ember?" he asked.
Riven glanced at Selene. She didn't look away from Orin.
"Stolen," Riven said. "From a dead-drop in the Iris District."
"And you opened it."
"Yeah."
Orin set the scanner down. He looked at Selene. "You know what this is."
"I know it's killing him," Selene said. "I need you to trace its origin."
Orin laughed, short and bitter. "You want me to trace an aristocrat fuel log? You know what they do to artificers who touch those?"
"I'll pay you enough to disappear," Selene said.
Orin stared at her. Then at Riven. Then back at the cuff.
"Fine," he muttered. "But if I end up in a detention block, I'm taking you both with me."
He pulled a thin silver needle from a drawer and pressed it against the cuff. The mark flared, brighter than before, and Riven felt something twist deep in his skull.
Memories flickered.
A voice he didn't recognize. Hands holding him down. The smell of burning paper.
Orin's device beeped.
He pulled the needle back and stared at the readout.
"This ember wasn't stolen," Orin said quietly. "It was registered."
"Registered where?" Selene asked.
Orin looked at Riven.
"In the aristocratic archive," he said. "Fuel log, subset G. Childhood extractions, third district."
Riven's chest went cold.
"What does that mean?" he asked.
Orin's voice was flat. "It means someone took your memories when you were a kid. Burned 'em for fuel. And logged you by name."
Selene's hand tightened on the edge of the workbench. "What name?"
Orin turned the scanner toward them.
On the screen, in small, clinical text, was a single line:
Subject 1147: Vale, Riven. Age 6. Status: Extracted.
Riven couldn't breathe.
"They know who you are," Orin said. "They've always