Chapter 7 7

By the time the first sickly, pale grey light of dawn began to bleed through the cracks in the safehouse's heavy wooden shutters, the tiny room felt less like a hideout and more like a tomb.

Cassian sat at the pine table, a detailed map of Duskhaven spread out before him, using a piece of charcoal to mark known House Draven guard posts and patrol routes. The cut at his temple had stopped bleeding entirely, leaving a dark, jagged mark along his hairline that only heightened his deadly seriousness.

"We stay put until dusk," Cassian stated, his charcoal scratching against the parchment. "Alaric will have posted extra guards at every primary bridge connecting the upper and lower districts by now. Walking the streets in daylight is suicide."

"We can't sit here like cornered rats," I argued, pacing the narrow strip of floor between the cot and the cold stove, my bare feet aching against the floorboards.

"If Alaric has access to your father's old records, he knows about his unregistered properties. It's only a matter of time before one of his retainers tries this lock."

"It's safer than the street, Marlowe."

"I need to contact Nessa," I declared, stopping right beside his chair.

Cassian's head snapped up, his brow furrowing violently. "No. Absolutely not. Anyone linked to your life before your fake death is a surveillance risk. If Alaric's men are scouring the lower district, your friend's shop will be under observation."

"Nessa isn't just a link to my past," I countered, leaning down to lock eyes with him. "She forged the identification papers that allowed me to vanish five years ago. She knows the shadow networks of this city better than any Draven enforcer, and she deserves to know I'm alive and in danger before your uncle's men break down her door for questioning!"

Cassian stared at me, his grey eyes storm-dark with conflict. I could see the instinct in him—the urge to lock the door, pull the shutters tight, and keep me hidden in the dark until he could forge an escape route out of Duskhaven. But he also saw the unyielding steel in my expression.

I would not let the people I loved become collateral damage in his family's blood feud.

He let out a long, heavy breath, rubbing his eyes. "If we do this, we do it on neutral ground. No direct messages to her shop. We use a secondary drop point."

Two hours later, we were standing beneath the vaulted stone arches of the Old Grain Exchange—a massive, sprawling covered market in the neutral merchant district, bustling with early-morning fishmongers, heavy wooden cargo carts, and dense crowds of dock workers.

I stood deep in the shadow of a massive granite pillar, wrapped in a heavy dark wool cloak Cassian had retrieved from his father's trunk, the hood pulled low over my face.

Cassian stood twenty yards away, leaning casually against a broadsheet kiosk, his hand resting beneath his lapel where his dagger was concealed.

A figure burst through the sea of morning shoppers, moving with fast, furious strides.

Nessa wore her familiar leather work apron over a coarse wool tunic, her auburn hair pinned back in a loose, messy coil. Her sharp brown eyes swept the arcade with terrifying intensity.

When her eyes finally caught mine standing in the shadow of the pillar, she stopped dead in her tracks.

For two agonizing seconds, she didn't move. Then, throwing all caution to the wind, she sprinted across the stone flags, ducked into the alcove, and slammed into me so hard the air rushed from my lungs.

"You absolute, unmitigated idiot," Nessa choked out, wrapping her arms around my neck so tightly I could barely breathe. "You insane, reckless, brilliant disaster of a woman!"

"Good to see you too, Nessa," I wheezed into her shoulder, a breathless, tearful laugh escaping me as I squeezed her back just as fiercely.

She pulled back abruptly, her hands slamming onto my shoulders as she searched my face, her eyes shiny with furious tears before her expression instantly hardened into a glare.

"I heard the rumors at dawn!" she whispered fiercely. "The harbor watch pulled a dead girl out of the canal near the customs tower! They were whispering it was Marlowe Kestrel! I spent the last three hours preparing to burn my shop to the ground and run for the border!"

"It wasn't me," I whispered back, holding her arms. "Alaric Draven planted a body double."

Nessa's eyes narrowed into sharp slits. "Alaric Draven? As in Cassian Draven's uncle?" She peeked past my shoulder, her eyes locking onto Cassian where he stood watching us from the kiosk. Her right hand slid toward the small forging chisel she always kept tucked in her apron sleeve. "Is he holding you hostage?"

"No," I said quickly, catching her wrist. "He pulled me out of the ballroom when the trap sprung. We're working together, Nessa. But Alaric knows who I am. He knows about the Hollow Mark."

Nessa went completely rigid, all the color draining from her face as the true scope of the disaster set in.

"Gods above," she breathed, running a hand over her face. "The mark... if the ruling Houses learn about the mark, this whole city will tear itself apart."

She recovered with frightening speed. Years of operating as the lower city's top illicit forger had given Nessa a incredible ability to suppress panic and replace it with ruthless logistics.

"Right," she said, pulling her cloak tight and scanning the market crowd.

"You can't stay in any Draven property. Alaric has too many connections. My shop has a hidden sub-cellar beneath the paper-curing room—it's lined with heavy lead sheeting to keep dampness out, which means it will block any scrying charms or house sweeps. I can have two fresh sets of forged travel papers ready by nightfall."

"Nessa, hiding us puts a target on your back," I warned, my voice tight.

"Alaric Draven can take a long walk off a short pier," she snapped dryly. "My back room is safer than anywhere else in this city right now. We move now, while the market crowd is thick enough to cover our retreat."

She stepped out of the shadow of the pillar, raising a subtle hand to signal to Cassian that the plan was set.

As they're finalizing the plan to relocate to Nessa's shop, her expression shifts, wary, glancing past Marlowe's shoulder toward the street.

Her brown eyes went sharp, her entire frame going rigid mid-stride.

"Don't turn around," she murmurs, her voice dropping into a barely audible thread of sound. "But there's a man in a Draven courier's coat who's walked past this alley three times in the last ten minutes."