Broken

Ink and blood

The pen was cold.

Colder than the night air. Colder than Kade’s blood on my hands an hour ago.

Tayo and I were hiding in the archives under the library. Rows of metal shelves. Dust that tasted like old paper.

Above us, we could hear it.

Gold light flashing. Shadows screaming.

Kade vs Vey.

Every time gold flared, the ceiling dust fell on us.

Every time shadow moved, the lights flickered.

*2 DAYS, 13 HOURS* glowed on the book in my lap.

The blank page was still open. The pen still waiting.

My hand shook.

“Don’t,” Tayo whispered. He was 14. He shouldn’t have to be here. “What if writing makes it worse?”

“What if not writing gets him killed?” I whispered back.

I pressed the tip of the pen to paper.

The second I did, the book _screamed_.

Not a sound. A feeling. Like needles in my skull.

White light shot up from the pages and slammed into the ceiling.

The fighting above stopped.

Silence.

Then Vey’s voice, right above us. Amused.

“Well, well. She found the pen. Took you long enough, Seer.”

The shelves in front of us peeled back like paper.

Vey stood there. Coat clean. No blood.

Behind him, three Reapers dragging something.

Kade.

His face was cut. His lip split. Gold light barely flickering under his skin now.

They threw him to the floor at Vey’s feet.

“Ada,” Kade rasped. He tried to get up. Couldn’t.

“Don’t write it,” he said. Looking straight at me. “It’s a trap.”

Vey crouched next to Kade. Ran a finger down Kade’s cheek.

“The rules are simple,” Vey said to me. “You write a name in the book, someone dies instead of the boy. You don’t write, both die.

You write the traitor’s name...” He tapped Kade’s chest. “...and he dies instead of Tayo. Clean trade.”

He looked at me. Black eyes.

“But if you try to write anything else? If you try to cheat? The book takes the one you love most. And then the boy anyway.”

Tayo grabbed my arm. “Ada—”

I ignored them both. Stared at the page.

*WHO DIES INSTEAD OF TAYO ADEBAYO.*

My hand moved.

I wrote: _Kade Veyren._

The book pulsed. Hot.

Kade closed his eyes. Like he’d been expecting it.

Vey smiled. “Good girl.”

But I wasn’t done.

Under Kade’s name, in smaller letters, I wrote:

_...will not die today._

The book jerked in my hands.

The ink bled. Turned red.

The word *NOT* caught fire on the page.

Vey’s smile vanished. “What did you do?”

The book slammed shut. Threw me back.

I hit the shelves. Pain exploded in my ribs.

Tayo screamed my name.

The lights died.

Total dark.

And in the dark, something else woke up.

*THE VAULT*

The floor fell out from under us.

We dropped.

Me. Tayo. Kade. Vey. All of us.

We landed hard on stone.

Torches lit on their own. One by one.

We were in a circular room. No doors.

Walls covered in books. Thousands. Millions.

And in the center, on a pedestal, was a book.

Bigger than mine. Older. Its cover was made of bone.

“The Vault,” Kade breathed. Blood on his teeth. “You found it.”

Vey was already on his feet. Furious. “You little— This isn’t possible. Only Collectors can—”

He stopped. Looked at me. “You’re not just a Seer, are you?”

I stood. My hands were bleeding from holding the book so tight.

“I don’t know what I am,” I said. “But I know what I’m not.

I’m not choosing who dies.”

I walked to the big book. The bone one.

It opened on its own.

Pages and pages of names.

Dates. Deaths.

And rules. Written in a language that burned to look at.

*RULE 1: ONE LIFE FOR ONE LIFE*

*RULE 2: THE SEER CANNOT INTERFERE*

*RULE 3: THE BOOK DECIDES*

At the bottom of the page, in tiny script:

*EXCEPTION: IF THE SEER WRITES WITH BLOOD, THE RULES CAN BE REWRITTEN.*

My blood.

Vey lunged. “No!”

Kade moved faster.

Even injured, even bleeding, he got between me and Vey.

Gold light exploded from him. Not weak anymore. Desperate.

Vey and Kade crashed together.

Shadow vs Gold.

The Reapers attacked Tayo.

I didn’t think.

I bit my palm. Hard.

Blood welled.

I pressed it to the bone book.

And I wrote.

_I, Ada Adebayo, Seer, reject the trade.

I reject the Halls.

I choose: No one dies today._

The bone book shuddered.

The entire Vault shook.

Books fell from shelves.

Vey screamed. It wasn’t human.

“YOU’RE BREAKING IT!”

He threw Kade off him and came for me. Hands like claws.

Kade caught him mid-air.

They went down.

And Kade whispered something in Vey’s ear.

Vey froze.

Then looked at me. Real fear in his black eyes for the first time.

“You don’t know what you’ve done,” he hissed.

Then he and the Reapers turned to smoke and were gone.

Just like that.

Gone.

Silence.

Except for the bone book humming.

And Kade, on the floor, coughing blood.

“Kade!” I ran to him.

He grabbed my face. His hands were shaking.

“You i***t,” he said, and laughed. Wet. “You rewrote a 1000-year-old contract with a paper cut.”

Tayo was okay. Shaking, but okay.

I looked at my book. The silver letters were gone.

In their place, new words:

*DEBT PAID. 0 DAYS REMAINING.*

It was over.

Or it should have been.

Because on the last page of the bone book, a new name had appeared.

Written in my blood.

*Ada Adebayo.*

Under it:

*MARKED. THE HALLS WILL COME.*

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