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"Don't."
Evan's finger moved against the black velvet. Just one. Inside his own coffin.
I shoved past Aunt Mara.
"Nia." Her hand locked around my elbow. "Don't make a scene."
"He's breathing."
Her face went flat. "You're upset."
"Yeah, no shit I'm upset. My brother's in a box and he just looked at me."
The chapel went dead quiet. Forty people in black coats turned their heads. Most of them had come for the free whiskey. Evan didn't have friends—he had people who owed him money and people who pretended they hadn't watched him get dragged into bad things.
I gripped the coffin's edge.
The funeral director stepped in fast. Bald. Pink cheeks. Expensive suit. He looked like he'd swallowed a live rat.
"Miss Vale," he said under his breath, "please step back."
"Open it."
"The viewing is over."
"Open the damn coffin."
Aunt Mara squeezed harder. "Nia. Let him rest."
I looked at her. Really looked.
Her mascara had run. Good performance. Her mouth trembled on cue. But her gold bracelet shook against her wrist.
Not because she was sad.
Because she was scared.
My stomach dropped.
I leaned closer to Evan. His skin had too much makeup. Gray powder pressed into the hollow under his cheekbones. A dead man's face painted onto a living one.
Then his eyes slid shut.
The chapel doors slammed open.
Everybody jumped.
Three people walked in wearing charcoal coats with no rain on them, even though Nightport had been getting hit all morning. They didn't rush. The room made space before they reached the first row.
The woman in front had dark hair pulled into a knot. No jewelry. No purse. Just black gloves and a knife-shaped scar cutting from the corner of her mouth toward her jaw.
Sera Quinn.
I knew her face from police scans and one very stupid argument Evan and I had six months ago.
*Don't ever get spotted by a Quinn,* he'd said.
*Why?*
*Because they don't chase you. They tell you where you're going to be, then wait there.*
Sera stopped beside the coffin.
Aunt Mara let go of me like my elbow had caught fire.
"Ms. Vale."
Her voice was quiet. Not soft. Quiet like she knew people leaned in.
I planted myself between her and Evan. "You people have a dress code for kidnapping funerals now?"
One of the men behind her snorted. Sera didn't.
"Move."
"No."
She glanced at the coffin. "Your brother made a bad delivery."
"My brother is supposed to be dead."
"He will be, if you keep yelling."
That shut my mouth for half a second.
"What do you want?"
"Not you." Her eyes lifted to mine. Dark brown. Tired around the edges. "Not today."
The funeral director backed toward the wall.
I put both hands on the coffin lid. "You're not taking him."
"He already belongs to the Court until he returns what he stole."
"Evan doesn't belong to anybody."
Sera's gaze flicked to Aunt Mara.
That was all.
Aunt Mara made a tiny sound in her throat and looked away.
My skin crawled.
"What did he steal?" I asked.
Sera gave me nothing.
Behind her, one of the men locked the chapel doors.
Click.
Everybody heard it.
The guests started whispering. A woman near the aisle stood up, then sat right back down when the bigger man looked her way.
I knew his type. Knuckles split. Neck thick. Coat hanging wrong over a shoulder holster.
I also knew locks.
The brass latch on the side door was old. The deadbolt above it was newer, cheap, installed crooked. If I had my roll of picks I could've had it open in twenty seconds.
My picks were in the pocket of my black dress.
The big man had noticed where I looked.
"Don't," he said.
I smiled at him. "Wasn't gonna."
Lie.
Sera lifted one gloved hand.
The two men moved around the coffin.
I lunged first.
My shoulder slammed into the bigger one's chest. Like hitting a refrigerator. He caught me around the waist and hauled me back before I got one fingernail under the lid.
"Nia!" Evan's voice came muffled from inside.
Every hair on my arms stood up.
The room exploded.
Aunt Mara covered her mouth. Somebody screamed. The funeral director actually fainted.
"Evan!" I kicked backward, hard.
The man grunted when my heel found his shin. He loosened up just enough for me to twist free.
I got one hand on the coffin.
The lid flew open.
Evan sat up, gulping air.
He looked awful. Dark hair stuck to his forehead. Dried blood at his temple. Silver tape around one wrist where he'd been tied down. His suit was the cheap black one from his closet, the one he wore to job interviews when he was pretending his life wasn't a dumpster fire.
"Move," he told me.
"Are you kidding me?"
"Nia, move."
Sera caught him by the shoulder and shoved him back down.
I went for her.
Dumb.
She turned, hooked my wrist, and suddenly I was bent over the coffin with my cheek pressed against cold wood. Pain lit up my arm all the way to my neck.
She didn't use much force. That made it worse.
"You fight like your brother," she said close to my ear. "Fast, loud, and with no plan after the first ten seconds."
"Get off me."
"Tell her," Sera said.
Evan went still.
I could see him in the shiny lid. His face. Mine. Sera's scarred mouth behind me.
"Tell me what?" I asked.
Evan looked at the guests, then at Aunt Mara.
His eyes found mine.
"I messed up," he said.
"You think?"
"I took a package. Just a courier run. I didn't know what was in it."
"What package?"
His throat worked. "A ledger."
Sera let out a slow breath through her nose.
I'd heard that word before. Not from Evan. From old people in the Vale neighborhood who went quiet when they saw Court cars on the street. From Grandpa, before he died drunk in a hospital bed, telling me never to trust paper more than people.
A ledger meant names.
Debts.
Secrets somebody killed to keep buried.
"Where is it?" I asked.
Evan shook his head once.
The big man stepped closer. "Wrong answer."
"I don't have it," Evan snapped. "I dropped it before your guys grabbed me."
"You gave it to someone," Sera said.
"No."
She watched him.
Evan had never been good at lying to me. His left eye always tightened first. It did it now.
He'd given it to someone.
I wanted to grab him by the collar and shake the truth out. I wanted to shove everybody in this room through a wall. Mostly, I wanted him off that coffin and standing beside me where I could yell at him properly.
Instead I said, "Let him go."
Sera released my wrist.
I stumbled back and rubbed at the red marks on my skin.
"That's not how this works," she said.
"Then explain it. Slowly. Use small words."
For the first time, the corner of her mouth moved. Not a smile. More like she'd almost remembered how.
"The Vesper Court wants the ledger. Your brother knows where it is. He will help us find it."
"And if he doesn't?"
Nobody answered.
That was answer enough.
Evan swung his legs over the side of the coffin. The big man grabbed his arm.
I shoved between them again.
"No." My voice cracked. I hated that it did. "You don't get to take him somewhere and say maybe he'll come back. No."
Sera looked past me toward the rows of terrified funeral guests.
"We can do this here," she said. "Or you can make these people watch what happens when the Court loses patience."
Aunt Mara made another choking sound.
I rounded on her. "You knew."
She flinched.
There it was.
"You knew he was alive." My voice got louder. "You put him in that box."
"I didn't put him anywhere," she whispered.
"But you took their money."
Her lips pressed together.
Evan looked away.
That hurt worse than it should have. He knew too. He'd let me walk into this chapel in borrowed black shoes, carrying flowers for a brother who was lying there breathing under six feet of polished wood.
"Why didn't you call me?" I asked him.
He didn't answer.
Sera nodded toward the doors.
The two men started moving Evan.
He fought then. Not much. One hard pull. One elbow thrown backward. The big man caught it in the ribs and drove his fist into Evan's stomach.
Evan folded with a rough gasp.
"Hey!" I screamed.
I ran at them.
Sera stepped in front of me.
I hit her shoulder. She barely moved.
Her hand closed around my throat—not squeezing, not yet—and she pushed me back against the chapel wall.
The stone was freezing through my dress.
"Listen," she said.
I clawed at her wrist.
"Get your hand off me."
"Listen, Nia."
Her eyes had changed. Less bored now. More angry. Not at me. At the whole damn room, maybe.
"Your brother has bought himself a little time," she said. "That is all he has. Don't waste it trying to be brave in front of people who can't help you."
I stared at her.
"What do you want from me?"
"Nothing today."
"Bullshit."
Her fingers loosened from my throat.
Behind her, Evan was being dragged down the aisle. His shoes scraped over the carpet. He twisted around once.
"Nia," he called.
I pushed off the wall.
Sera blocked me again.
Evan's face went pale under the funeral makeup.
"Don't open anything for them," he shouted.
The big man punched him in the kidney.
Evan went down to one knee.
Something hot and ugly snapped through me.
I grabbed the brass candle stand beside the wall and swung.
Sera caught it before it hit her.
Her glove smoked where the metal touched it.
Actually smoked.
I froze.
So did she.
For one weird second, neither of us said anything.
Then Sera looked at the candle stand in my hands.
Her face lost what little color it had.
"Where did you get that?" she asked.
I glanced down. Old brass. Tarnished. A little cross stamped near the base. It'd been sitting in the chapel since before I got here.
"From the chapel, obviously."
Her stare stayed on my hands.
The smoke curled up between my fingers. My palm didn't hurt. The brass should've been hot. It wasn't.
The big man yanked Evan back to his feet.
"Sera," he said. "We need to go."
She blinked once, sharp and quick.
Then whatever she'd seen vanished behind her face.
"Take him," she said.
"No!" I shoved past her.
This time I almost made it.
My fingertips caught Evan's sleeve.
He grabbed my hand hard.
For a second, I had him.
His fingers were cold. His grip shook. He pressed something into my palm.
Then the big man tore him away.
Evan's hand slipped from mine.
The chapel doors opened.
Gray daylight flashed across the floor.
And then he was gone.
I stood there with my arm stretched out like an idiot, staring at the empty doorway.
Nobody moved.
The guests didn't look at me anymore. They looked at the floor. At the dead flowers. Anywhere but my face.
Cowards.
My fingers closed around what Evan had given me.
A cheap motel key card.
The name printed on it had been scratched off with something sharp.
Sera stood beside me for another moment.
"You're going to want to run," she said.
I laughed once. It came out broken. "You people just stole my brother out of a coffin. Maybe I don't take life advice from you."
"Run if you want." Her eyes dropped to my clenched fist. "Just don't go home."
Then she walked out too.
I waited until the black cars pulled away from the curb.
Only then did Aunt Mara come near me.
"Nia, honey—"
I held up the candle stand.
She stopped.
The brass was still warm in my hand. Still smoking a little where Sera's glove had touched it.
"Tell me what he stole," I said.
Aunt Mara's mouth opened. Closed.
"I don't know."
"Liar."
Her face crumpled. "Nia, please. I didn't want this. They came to me three days ago and said if I helped them, Evan would live. If I didn't—"
"So you let them bury him alive."
"He wasn't supposed to wake up!" she said. "They gave him something. They said he'd sleep through it. They said you wouldn't know."
I stared at her.
"And that made it okay?"
She didn't answer.
I turned and walked toward the side door.
"Where are you going?" Aunt Mara called after me.
I didn't look back.
The motel key card burned in my fist.
Evan had told me not to open anything for them.
He hadn't said anything about opening something for me.
The side door's cheap deadbolt took me eighteen seconds.
I stepped out into the rain and didn't