I didn’t wake to the light. I woke to a weight that was too heavy, too solid, and far too intoxicating for my own survival.

My vision was a hazy blur of silver hair against a black silk pillowcase. For a confused second, I thought the fever had finally melted my brain, but the scent was too real—the sharp, biting aroma of cedarwood and the underlying, perennial frost of the Tower.

Then, I realized what my body was doing.

I was draped over Linus Kerr like a drowning woman clinging to a spar. My leg was hooked unceremoniously over his waist, and my hand—the same hand that had spent years delicately grinding herbs—had strayed beneath the silk lapel of his robe. My palm was pressed flat against the bare, chilling skin of his chest, directly over the rhythmic, mechanical click-tick of his heart.

I felt him go rigid beneath me. A sharp, hissed breath escaped his teeth, sounding like steam venting from a high-pressure pipe. Every muscle in his body turned to granite in a single heartbeat.

I looked up, my eyes crashing into a pair of stormy indigo irises that looked ready to incinerate me.

The silence was a deafening void. I realized exactly where my leg was resting, and against what. The hard, demanding reality of his body was a physical shock that sent a jolt of electricity straight to my gut.

"AH!"

I shrieked, scrambling backward in a blind, undignified panic.

CLINK—

The Cold-Iron chain snapped taut.

"Oof!"

The tension yanked me back before I could roll off the mattress. I tumbled forward, my momentum betrayed by the very leash he’d put on me. My lips grazed the rough, cold stubble of his jaw in an accidental, breathless caress. For a heartbeat, my face was so close to his that I could see the dark, jagged pupils of his eyes.

My face burned with a heat that had nothing to do with magic. I went as stiff as a board, my heart hammering against my ribs. "I... the... the chain caught..."

Linus didn't pull away. He reached out and clamped a hand around my waist, pinning me down to the bed with a force that ended all friction.

"Don't move," he rasped.

His voice was a haunted, lethal warning. It sounded like a growl from a predator holding back its own hunger by a thread. "Unless you want me to exercise my 'Owner's rights' right here and now."

He didn't wait for me to breathe. He rolled out of bed with the frantic efficiency of a man escaping a crime scene. He stood with his back to me, his broad shoulders blocking the morning light. He cinched his silk robe so tight it looked like a suit of armor.

"Ten minutes," he said, his voice returning to that clinical, distant cold. "Get yourself together. What happened last night... will not happen again."

The breakfast that followed was a masterclass in suffocating silence.

I sat at his right hand, the silver fork in my hand feeling like a lead weight. The silence was finally broken by Adjutant Silas.

"Sir," Silas reported, his boots snapping together. "An envoy from General Malles is here. There is a public execution in the square at noon—a suspected cell of 'Cinder-Walkers.' The General has requested Miss Wylde’s presence... as a guest of honor."

CLANG.

My fork clattered against the porcelain plate. The color drained from my face. "Guest of honor." I knew what that meant. Malles wanted to watch the "Nightingale" break as she watched her own kind turn to ash.

"I'm not going," I whispered, my fingers clawing at the white linen tablecloth.

"Tell the envoy she will be there," Linus said. He didn't even look up from his black coffee. His voice was as cold and flat as a tombstone.

"Silas, clear the subterranean training hall," Linus said, ignoring my protest entirely. "We leave in two hours."

Linus's private training hall reeked of stale sweat and cold stone. He had shed his vest and coat, standing in the center of the room in only a white shirt, sleeves rolled up.

"Take it." He tossed a wooden training dagger at me.

I caught it, but my hand was trembling. I was still wearing that emerald velvet dress—a heavy, suffocating cage of a garment with a hem that dragged like a ball and chain.

"The fire is coming, Lillian. It doesn't care about your tears. It only cares about how fast you burn," Linus said, stepping into my space. "If you go to that square as a victim, you'll be ash before they even light the match. I’m going to teach you to be the one holding the torch."

Without warning, he struck.

He didn't pull his punch. A lightning-fast sweep of his leg caught me across the shins. I tried to skip back, but the floor-length velvet skirt was too heavy, too wide. It tangled around my ankles like a wet shroud.

I went down hard. My face slammed into the padded mat, and the emerald fabric, now damp with my own frantic sweat, felt like it weighed fifty pounds. It was a beautiful, emerald-colored trap.

"Get up," Linus barked, looming over me.

"I can't... this dress..." I hissed, struggling to find my footing, only to trip on the thick velvet again. I tried to rip the fabric with my bare hands, but the high-grade silk and reinforced lining held firm, only bruising my fingertips.

Linus let out a dark, mocking scoff. He walked toward me, the heavy heels of his boots thudding on the mat. "A lady’s finery is a convenient excuse for a coward."

He reached down, his hand wrapping around the hilt of the Cold-Iron sword at his hip. I froze. He didn't draw the blade. Instead, he used the sharp, reinforced edge of the metal sheath.

"Stay still," he commanded.

He stepped between my tangled legs, the heat of him clashing with the drafty air of the hall. He hooked the edge of the sheath into the hem of my skirt and gave a sudden, violent upward jerk.

RIIIIIP.

The sound of the high-grade velvet tearing was a visceral, jagged scream. He didn't stop until the slit reached my mid-thigh, exposing my bruised skin and the white lace of my petticoat. He did the same to the other side with a clinical, terrifying efficiency.

"There," he whispered, his indigo eyes darkening as he looked at my exposed legs. "No more excuses."

Anger—hot, raw, and desperate—finally snapped in my chest. I didn't wait for him to move. I lunged, snatching the wooden dagger and aiming for the space between his ribs.

Linus didn't flinch. He caught my wrist mid-air, pinning me against the stone wall. He slammed his body into mine, caging me. One hand clamped around my throat—firm enough to let me feel the frantic, terrified pulse in my own neck—while the other pinned my wrist over my head.

"Listen to me, Lillian." He hovered over me, his sweat dripping onto my lip. "When the fire starts, the crowd will scream. The heat will try to melt your brain. Don't look at the pyre."

He seized my hand, forcing the tip of the wooden dagger against his own chest, right over the spot where his mechanical heart was thrumming like a starving beast.

"Think of me. Think of how much you want to kill me for what I've done. Turn all that terror into a blade. Stare at me. Only at me."

His voice was a low, hypnotic rumble that made the iron in my blood vibrate. "As long as you're trying to figure out how to cut my throat, you won't feel the flames. Am I the most terrifying thing in your world, Lillian? Answer me."

"Yes," I rasped, my voice sounding more like his than my own.

"Good." He released me and stood back, his gaze hungry. "Again. Throw yourself at me until you forget you're a victim."

The heat in the square wasn’t a metaphor; it was an assault.

Sweat stung the raw cuts on my legs—the ones I’d earned in the training hall this morning—and the salt made them burn with every step. My eyes throbbed from the glare reflecting off the ivory stone of the Cathedral. I stood in the high inquisitorial box, the emerald velvet of my dress feeling like a layer of wet, heavy moss. The corset was cinched so tight that every shallow breath felt like my ribs were grinding against one another.

"Don't blink," Linus whispered.

He stood beside me, a towering mass of black wool and cold iron. The silver sigils on his chest didn't look 'brilliant'; they caught the sun and threw the light back into my eyes, sharp and jagged, making a headache bloom behind my temples.

His hand didn't just 'snake' around my waist. He clamped his arm around me, hauling my body back against his side until I was forced to stand straight. To the thousands of people below, he was a protective fiancé. To me, his fingers were a vice, digging into my hip with a pressure that promised bruises.

"Watch the square," he rasped, his voice a low vibration against my ear. "Don't look at the crowd. Don't look at the smoke. Look at the horizon if you have to, but don't you dare faint."

In the center of the plaza, three black iron pillars rose from mounds of wood soaked in black, stinking oil. Three men were bound there, their faces hidden behind hoods that were already damp with their sweat.

Directly opposite us sat General Malles. He wasn't a saint; he was a vulture in a crimson uniform. He didn't look at the 'sinners.' He looked at me, his milky, cataract-filmed eyes scanning my face for the first sign of a crack. He wanted to see the witch bleed.

"Ignite," Malles said. It wasn't a command; it was a bored dismissal of life.

WOOSH.

The fire didn't just start; it roared. The air in the square was instantly sucked toward the pyres, replaced by a wave of heat that smelled of scorched grease and chemicals.

ARGHHHHH—!

The screams weren't human. They were high, wet, and raw—the sound of vocal cords being cooked.

In a heartbeat, the square vanished. I was back in that closet, the wood grain biting into my palms, watching the white flames lick my mother’s feet. My lungs seized. The air felt like I was breathing in hot sand. The resonance in my blood began to scream, a high-pitched metallic whine that made my teeth ache. I felt my knees give way, my body ready to collapse into a heap of emerald velvet.

"I said, look at me!"

Linus’s voice hit me like a slap. He didn't just turn me around; he wrenched me toward him, his massive frame blocking the view of the burning men. He seized my chin, his fingers cold and unyielding, forcing my head back until I had to look into those bottomless indigo eyes.

"Think of the cellar," he hissed, his face inches from mine. "Think of the mat this morning. Think of how much you want to kill me for what I’ve done. Use it, Lillian. Feed on it."

Hate. It was the only thing cold enough to fight the fire.

I focused on the bruising grip of his hand. I focused on the way he’d collared me like a dog. The anger was a shot of pure, bitter adrenaline. It was sharper than the fear, and it gave me a floor to stand on. I stopped shaking because I was too busy trying to figure out how to bury a knife in his throat. My fingers clawed into the wool of his sleeves, my nails digging deep into the muscle of his arms.

To the crowd, we were a scandalous tableau—the Inquisitor and his consultant lost in a moment of dark passion while the world turned to ash behind them. Malles’s lip curled in a sneer of irritation. He wanted a broken girl; he got a woman whose eyes were burning with a murderous focus.

Linus didn't pull away. He took my hand—the one that was trying to draw his blood—and didn't kiss it like a lover. He gripped it hard, his lips pressing against my knuckles with a cold, dry aggression. It wasn't a kiss; it was a brand. A marking of property in front of the world.

"You look like a blade, Nightingale," he whispered against my skin. "Stay sharp."

I shuddered, the cold of his lips lingering like a scar.

A new sound rose through the crackle of the flames—a low, rhythmic chanting. I turned my head. At the edge of the square, a woman in flowing white robes was moving through the masses. Agatha.

She held a staff topped with a massive, pulsing crystal. As she walked, the frenzied crowd fell to their knees as if she were a god walking the earth. She ignored the dying men; she ignored Malles. She stopped and tilted her head back, her gaze cutting through the smog to find mine.

There was no mercy in her face. Only a clinical, serpentine coldness.

She raised her hand and made a single, slow motion: a finger drawn across her own throat.

My pulse spiked, but not from terror. I felt it. A high-pitched, metallic thrumming in the marrow of my bones. It was the exact same frequency as the brass heart I’d pulled from the petrified corpse. It was the hum of a machine, not a miracle.

"Linus," I whispered, my fingers tightening on his vest. "The staff. Look at the crystal."

I looked up at him, my voice a jagged edge.

"I can feel the resonance. That thing she’s holding... it’s the same technology. The person who turned that dockworker to stone... she’s standing right there."

Linus narrowed his eyes, a lethal killing intent exploding in his gaze as he locked onto the woman in white.

The execution was over. The victims were ash. But as the smoke cleared, I knew the real hunt had just begun.

The retreat from the square was a blur of steel and screaming fanatics.

Agatha’s presence had turned the execution into a religious riot. Silas and the black-clad guards had to form a wall of shields, the blunt ends of their pikes thudding into the chests of pilgrims who tried to throw themselves under the carriage wheels just to touch the shadow of the Prophetess. Inside the carriage, Linus sat like a gargoyle, his hand never leaving the hilt of his sword, his jaw locked tight enough to snap. He didn't look like a victor; he looked like a man who had just seen a ghost he couldn't kill.

The moment the iron-bound doors of the Tower of Silence slammed shut, the madness of the city was cut off. The silence was a physical weight, pressing into my eardrums.

The adrenaline that had kept my spine straight finally curdled. My knees turned to water. I would have hit the floor if Linus hadn't snatched me by the arm, his grip bruisingly firm.

"Can you walk?"

He didn't wait for a reply. He stripped off his heavy cloak—it reeked of the square, a sickening blend of oil and the charred-meat smell of the pyres—and threw it at a servant. He looked at me, his eyes dark and restless. I was deathly pale, my skin slick with a cold sweat that made me feel like a wet sheet of parchment.

"I... I can't breathe," I managed to choke out.

I clawed at my neck. The velvet was a noose. The rigid whalebone stays of the dress were a cage. In the square, the emerald finery had been my shield; now, it was a predator, squeezing the life out of my lungs until the world started to tilt.

"Damn it."

Linus didn't call for a maid. He didn't want any other eyes on what he considered his. He scooped me up, his arms feeling like frozen iron bars, and carried me up the stone stairs. He kicked open the door to his bedchamber and dropped me onto the edge of the mattress.

"Turn around," he commanded.

I didn't argue. I sat there, my back to him, my hands bracing against the wood as I fought for a single, full breath.

I heard him step up behind me. He had removed his gloves. The cold radiating from his skin made the hair on my arms stand up—a biting, sharp chill that made me want to flinch and huddle closer all at once.

Slide.

The first silk ribbon came loose. I let out a fractured, sobbing sigh. Then the second, and the third. Linus worked with a suffocating kind of patience, his knuckles grazing my bare skin as he unthreaded the laces. With every inch of velvet loosened, the pressure on my lungs eased, but the room felt smaller, hotter.

Finally, the last lace gave way. The emerald gown, heavy and structureless, slid from my shoulders and pooled around my waist like a sea of dark moss. Beneath it, my chemise was damp and translucent, clinging to my skin.

Linus went dead still.

I felt his fingers—the bare skin, cold as a winter grave—glide over my back. I hissed in pain. The whalebone had been driven into my flesh for hours. I knew what he was looking at: angry, raised red welts, some of them chafed raw and weeping a faint moisture. It wasn't a dress; it was a branding iron.

"Ngh..." I bit my lip. "It hurts."

"It had to be this way," Linus’s voice was a low vibration, so close his breath cooled the raw skin on my neck. "If you hadn't looked like a queen, Malles would have treated you like a dog. Your pride is the only thing that keeps you from the fire."

Despite the harshness of his words, his touch was impossibly light. He helped me step out of the heavy pile of velvet, leaving me in nothing but my thin silk slip. I turned to face him, my lungs finally expanding.

"Thank you," I whispered.

Linus didn't answer. He turned to the cabinet, poured a glass of water, and added ice before pressing it into my hand. He leaned against the dark wood of the dresser, unbuttoning the top of his own shirt. For the first time, I saw the jagged line of his collarbone—a rare piece of the man beneath the armor.

"The woman," Linus said, his eyes on the ice in his glass. "Agatha. Tell me what you felt."

I took a slow sip, the cold grounding me. The apothecary in me pushed through the exhaustion. "The staff. That crystal at the top... it’s a devil’s snare for sound. When she raised it, I didn't just see the crowd go mad—I felt the iron pipes miles beneath the streets start to 'sing' with her."

"She’s using the city’s steam network like a massive, hollow lung," I explained, my voice growing sharper. "She’s broadcasting a vibration that turns the citizens into mindless cattle. It’s a performance of the blood, Linus. She’s vibrating their very bones until they can’t think of anything but her."

"And the man turned to stone?" Linus asked, his indigo eyes darkening.

"The brass heart in that corpse... its rhythm matches her staff. She’s experimenting, trying to find people whose bodies won't shatter when she turns up the 'song.' The ones who fail... they just petrify."

Linus walked toward me, bracing his hands on the bed on either side of my hips, caging me. "You’re a dangerous creature, Lillian."

He reached out, his finger hooking beneath the Cold-Iron chain at my neck. "For the next few days, you stay here. I’m giving you the keys to my private library—everything the Church has hidden about the 'Screaming Metals' and resonance. I want to know how to shatter her song."

"In return..." Linus’s gaze dropped to the raw marks on my waist. "I’ll have the tailors bring new silks. No more whalebone. No more corsets. In this tower, no one has the right to see your skin or your struggle but me."

I stared at him. He was promising me the right to breathe, but only so I could think for him. It was a bargain of silk and iron. He wasn't releasing me; he was just lining my cage with softer fabric so I would be a more efficient weapon. And yet, as he claimed me as his exclusive property, my heart gave a treacherous, uneven skip.

"Is this a bargain?" I asked.

Linus leaned in and pressed a chilled, restrained kiss to my forehead—a mark of ownership that felt like a brand of ice.

"It is a mercy, my Nightingale."