Page 103
He pulls back just enough to breathe, fangs glinting. “Why in the name of the Pit did you do that? We just jumped out of a moving tram, Eden. I didn’t think we were aiming for a suicide pact.”
He’s still laughing softly, but his hands are checking my limbs, making sure I haven't left any vital components on the tram.
“Everything that’s happened—every nightmare, every ounce of this fuckery—is because I left him in that car,” I whisper, my fingers digging into the soot as I sit up properly. “I ran away once, and I’ve been running ever since—”
“Eden, baby girl…”
“Let me finish,” I cut him off, my voice steady despite the adrenaline-shivers. “I’m sick of everyone deciding for me. I’m not having my memory wiped, Malachi,” I say decisively. “I want to remember this. I want to remember the demon who made me eat pepperoni pizza while wearing my kitten vest when my world was ending. I want to remember that I survived this, and I survived him, and I did it with my eyes open, with you.”
“On your terms. You will remember.” He stands up, offering me a grime-slicked silver hand, hauling me up. “Now, let’s go find your ghost. We have a debt to settle, and I’d hate to keep the Grey Archives waiting.”
The silence of the dunes is absolute for all of three seconds before a sandy, thumping sound breaks the quiet. From the settling dust cloud at the base of the slope, a heavy, low-slung shape emerges. It shakes itself vigorously, sending glowing embers and soot flying in every direction like a glitter bomb.
Magma-crusted skin sizzles quietly against the cold ash as he trots over to us, leaving a trail of steam in his wake. He stops in front of Malachi and, with a look of immense canine pride, drops something at our feet with a metallic clatter—a twisted, smoking piece of the tram’s door handle.
Malachi lets out a short, surprised laugh and reaches down to ruffle the coarse, burning rock behind the beast’s ears. “Good boy. I suppose you didn't want to stay for the lecture on 'mortal fluids' either, did you?”
Chain-Chewer lets out a huff of agreement, and for the first time in a very long time, the odds don't feel quite so impossible.
Chapter 37
Malachi
“The tram follows the perimeter rails,” I say, wiping a fresh layer of soot from my brow before pointing toward a cluster of hulking, rusted grates embedded in the ash like the teeth of a buried giant. “It’s a scenic tour for the bureaucrats who want to avoid the smell. But the Grey Archives are a heat sink. All that collective regret generates a Hell of a lot of thermal energy, and the offices need air conditioning. We take the intake vents. It cuts a hundred-mile curve into a three-mile straight shot.”
Eden looks at the grates, then at me. “Is it going to be tight?” she asks.
“Only for my ego,” I mutter.
I hook my fingers into the freezing cold, iron lattice of the grate. The rusted bolts shriek in protest before shearing off, and I heave the metal aside to reveal a vertical drop into the dark.
Bracing myself with one deep breath, I sling my legs over the side, and disappear, sliding down a smooth chute until I hit a mesh walkway with a hollow clang. Monstrous, four-blade fans spin slowly overhead, cutting the air with a rhythmic thrumming that vibrates in my teeth. Pipes the size of trees snake along the walls, hissing jets of recycled steam, turning the air into a thick, stagnant soup.
“It’s like a sauna in a basement,” Eden wheezes as she lands beside me, pulling at the collar of her shirt.
“Welcome to the lungs of the Archives,” I say, checking the pressure gauges on the wall. “It’s humid, it’s filthy, and the air’s been breathed by three billion sinners before it reached us. Try not to think about the logistics of the moisture on the walls.”
The labyrinthine tunnels of the maintenance sector seem to stretch endlessly as we walk. The thumping of the fans is broken only by the slap of our boots and the heavy, grinding tread of Chain-Chewer flanking us, his magma-skin hissing every time a drop of condensation falls from the ceiling and hits his back.
Minutes bleed into what feels like hours until the air changes into something thicker and wetter.
We round a sharp corner where the tunnel widens, dumping us into a monolithic, cavernous hub. The atmosphere shifts instantly from stagnant cold to a localized, humid breeze that clings to the skin. At the center of the chamber, beneath a tangle of weeping pipes that look like the exposed veins of the city, sits a concrete basin.
It’s a runoff pool—a collection point for the condensation stripped from the Archives' cooling systems. And right now, steaming gently in the gloom, it looks like the finest bath in the universe.
The water’s crystal clear, a startling contrast to the grime-streaked walls, shimmering like liquid copper under the dull red emergency lights. It’s an industrial oasis in a desert of soot. I look at the pool, then back at Eden, who looks like she’s been dragged through a coal mine and then shoved into a blender.
“We should clean you up,” I murmur, my voice echoing slightly off the damp concrete.
She stares at the water, then at the dark, dripping tunnel ahead. “Malachi, do we really have time for a spa day? I’m pretty sure your sister’s currently imagining new ways to turn our skin into handbags.”
“We look like a pair of vagrants. If we want to get past the intake clerks, we need to look like we're supposed to be here. Or at least like we haven't just committed several felonies.”
She bites her lip, eyes darting between the steam and the shadows. “I don't know... I feel like every second we stand still is another second the noose tightens.”
I step closer, letting a smirk pull at my mouth, eyes flaring as I lean down toward her ear.
“I don't know,” I drawl. “Do you have time to squeeze in a quick orgasm before we’re separated for good? Or are we strictly following the HR handbook today?”
