Chapter 5

I never answered him.

I left Weston standing in that street with the question still open between us, because some things are worth more unsaid than said badly, and I did not trust my own voice not to break on it. He let me go without following. That, more than anything he'd said, was what made me think the bargain might actually hold.

Two days later, the whole city gathered in the central square to hear it made official.

I stood at the back of the crowd, mask up, coat collar high, one more shadow among a hundred others pressed…