“But what makes you assume we’d have any better luck?” Jacey asks gently. “We’re not even sure where he went, and even if we could stop him—”

“He’ll go back to his shop. He has everything he needs to change the past now, and he won’t waste any time.”

Tessa folds her arms across her chest and cradles her elbows in her palms. “Let’s try the Grand Council first. And then if they don’t—”

Frustration builds inside me. A pressure behind my eyes. A weight in my chest. “I’m going now,” I say. “With or without the rest of you.”

They all go silent. A held breath.

And then Bram clears his throat. “I’ll go with you.”

“I will too,” Talon says.

Tessa digs her fingers into her hair. “Of course I’ll come along.” She looks at Jacey and Niklas, who both nod. “We all will. But not until I change those bandages and give you another pain spell.”

But she can’t heal what really matters. She can’t crack open my chest to find my heart—bruised in shades of black and blue, yellow and green, tattered with grief and betrayal—and make it whole again.

Some things can’t be mended.

Before we leave the Mandible District, we go back inside the shadow market and gather supplies. Knives and daggers, cords made of bone fragments that clamp down with struggle.

We walk through the night to make it back to Latham’s shop. I’m weak from blood loss, and the others take turns letting me lean on them for support. All except Bram, who stays at the back of the group.

I’ve lost track of time, but I know we haven’t eaten or slept in far too long. And we don’t have time to do either right now.

As we travel, I bite my cheek against the throbbing in my hand, before I realize that my hand is no longer there. A phantom pain that hurts just as much as if it were real. Like my other path on Gran’s healed bone. The ache of expecting something that isn’t there. The agony of absence.

And so I focus on my anger instead. I let it fester and ooze. My father once said that anger was like paint on a wall—it might be the first thing you notice, but it’s always just covering up something else. You can’t actually build anything from it.

But I think he’s wrong.

I think if the anger is big enough, maybe it could build a whole world. A different future.

As we draw closer to Latham’s shop, a thin strip of pale pink light hovers above the horizon. Bram draws up beside me and touches my shoulder lightly. “Can we talk?”

I start to pull away, but he catches my fingers in his. “Saskia, please. Just let me say this.”