THE BLASTED CONTRACT COIN BOOK 1

CHAPTER 19 THE MECHANICS OF THINGS

POV Gideon

As Mercy entered the shower, I chose not to leave.

I hadn't shared the specific, bleeding details of what the Tri-Link had dragged out of Cillian's mind last night, and I knew she would appreciate the efficiency of receiving the intelligence while she performed her morning ablutions.

But I didn't stay just to save time. I am a man built entirely of violent obsessions, and my obsession today was singular: I would not let Mercy's heartbeat leave my sensory range unless a direct, physical order from Alistair forced the distance.

I followed her into the sprawling, white-tiled washroom, leaning my shirtless, scarred frame against the cold marble doorframe as the scalding water began to hiss against the stone.

We didn't care about the nudity. Modesty was a luxury for people who hadn't been stripped of their dignity by the gutter long before they were ever given their names. In the Syndicate, we were not men and women playing at courtship; we were simply weapons, bodies, and wills.

"The twins went into the basement cell last night," I said, raising my gravelly voice over the heavy drumming of the water. Through the billowing clouds of eucalyptus-scented steam, I watched her silhouette, perfect, unmoving, a dark blade under a hot waterfall.

"Caspian pulled the memories. Sterling and I helped him sink into the marrow of it."

I didn't mention that Alistair or Vane would have had my head for subjecting my baseline stability to that kind of volatile, synthetic torment. Mercy didn't ask, either. She just kept scrubbing the city's stubborn gray soot from her forearms, her heartbeat remaining a perfect, rhythmic metronome.

"And?" she asked, her voice cutting through the mist, entirely level.

"It's a tragedy, Mercy. The worst kind," I rumbled, the memory of that cold, vinegar-soaked garret room still sticking to my ribs like wet ash.

"The grifter had a daughter. Miri. She was about eight years old, dying in a bed of gray rags while he watched, completely helpless, sobbing."

I leaned my head back against the marble, closing my eyes as the steam hit my face, recalling the golden glow we'd witnessed in the Dreaming.

"The girl was a Natural Weaver. A Soul Weaver, Mercy. Her power bloomed in its absolute purity right as the last sparks of life left her. She didn't want her father to die alone in the dark after she was gone, so she took his tears, took her own final breath, and poured her entire remaining soul into that wooden token he'd carved for her. That act turned it into the gold we see today. She forged an item to keep him safe as her dying wish."

I let out a harsh, bitter breath.

"The kid was pure light. And that bottom-feeder Cillian... I'm not sure he ever did a single thing in his pathetic life to merit that kind of devotion. He's a small-time grifter. He never took part in the skin trade; he's not involved in Syndicate business. He's just a common scavenger. A sewer rat who happens to be carrying a saint's miracle in his waistcoat pocket."

The water clicked off. The sudden silence in the bathroom was heavy, broken only by the steady, rhythmic drip-drip of the showerhead.

"A coin with a child's soul-binding integrated into it," Mercy's voice emerged from the dissipating steam, utterly clinical, as if she were reading a schematic for an industrial boiler.

She stepped out of the stall, water beading off her pale skin like diamonds on polished marble. She snatched a thick towel, drying herself with the swift, unhurried precision of a soldier preparing for inspection.

"The mechanics of such a vessel are exceptionally rare. It explains why the tether feels so physically heavy against my core. It isn't a standard, logical contract. It is operating on the raw, absolute survival logic of a dead child's final wish."

She began to pull on her black under-layers, her movements efficient and silent. I reached onto the marble vanity, my massive, calloused fingers wrapping around the delicate handle of her ivory comb.

"Sit," I grunted.

She dropped onto the vanity stool without a word. I stepped up behind her, my massive bulk completely eclipsing her in the glass. I began to drag the comb through her damp, dark hair. It was wet and tangled from the water, but I was practiced. Once brushed through, I clicked on the mechanical dryer, the blast of warm air filling the small space, and began gathering the sleek strands at the nape of her neck.

I pulled it into a severe, punishingly tight braid, the exact, unyielding style she always wore, and Alistair approved of.

As I pinned the dark mass into place, a wave of memory hit me, sharper and meaner than a razor blade. Suddenly, I wasn't standing in a luxury suite at the Main House. In my mind, I was standing in a freezing, one-room lean-to in the industrial slums. The air there didn't smell like eucalyptus; it smelled of wet pine smoke, open gutters, and damp straw.

I remembered a younger, smaller version of myself, hands already crosshatched with fresh scars, doing this exact same task by the guttering light of a single tallow candle.

"I miss the old days sometimes," I murmured, my voice losing its gravelly, monstrous edge for a fleeting second.

"Doing this for you back then. When the world was smaller."

Mercy didn't turn around. She didn't blink. She just stared at our reflection in the glass: the massive, scarred giant, and the small, dark-haired reaper sitting perfectly still beneath his hands.

"In the old days," Mercy stated, her voice flat and perfectly factual,

"You put my hair in this style because it was the safest. It was the least likely layout to be grabbed from behind when someone tried to pull my head back to cut my throat in the alleys. It was also the least likely to harbor lice when we slept in the straw. We had no mirror for me to learn the task myself. Back then, it was a biological necessity for survival. Now, we have a mirror, warm water, and an ivory comb. Now we do this by choice. Choice is fundamentally better."

The sheer, unvarnished honesty of it stung, but she wasn't wrong. She was never wrong about the data.

"That it is, my Little Bird," I whispered, a faint, sad smile pulling at my lips. "That it is."

I leaned down and pressed a quick, fierce kiss to the top of her head, the clean scent of her soap filling my lungs. I let my heavy hand linger on her shoulder for one more second, feeling the steady, rhythmic throb of her pulse against my palm. She was put together. She was armored.

"Breakfast?" I asked, offering my arm.