Nessa Quill had forged happier childhoods, kinder mothers, heroic last words, and one extremely convincing memory of a duke winning a sword fight he had, in reality, lost to a decorative hedge.

But she had never forged enough money to keep her brother out of debt.

That particular failure sat on the kitchen table in the form of a black envelope stamped with silver wax.

Tavi stood on the opposite side of the table, looking guilty enough to qualify as a confession.

Nessa pointed at the envelope. "Tell me that's an invitation to an expensive funeral."

"It isn't."

"Then tell me you secretly became rich."

"Also no."

"Excellent. I enjoy beginning my evenings with disappointment."

Their apartment hung beneath Lantern Row, one of Vespera's lower districts, where buildings clung to iron platforms suspended above the endless cloud sea. Through the cracked window, silver Anchor chains disappeared downward into luminous mist, each link wider than a carriage. Far above, the upper districts glittered beneath the enormous white moon.

Tavi pushed the envelope toward her.

Nessa did not touch it.

Collectors used black paper when ordinary threats were considered insufficiently theatrical.

"How much?" she asked.

Tavi swallowed. "Nine years."

Nessa stopped breathing.

Not nine crowns. Not nine memory crystals.

Nine years.

In Vespera, time was currency for people who had run out of everything else.

A creditor could legally extract years from a debtor's lifespan and sell them to chronomancers. Rich families purchased decades to extend youth, power spells, or preserve themselves against illness. Poor families learned not to think too hard about where those decades came from.

Nessa finally broke the seal.

TAVI QUILL: DEBT RECALLED IN FULL.

PAYMENT DUE BEFORE THIRD MOONBELL.

NINE YEARS OF VITAL CHRONOLOGY OR EQUIVALENT VALUE.

Failure to comply would authorize compulsory collection.

Nessa read it twice, hoping the second reading might contain fewer atrocities.

It did not.

"You told me the apprenticeship loan was deferred until next winter."

"It was."

"Apparently the concept of winter has changed."

"The creditor sold the contract."

Nessa looked up sharply. "To whom?"

Tavi hesitated.

That hesitation frightened her more than the number nine.

"Tavi."

"Vaunt Holdings."

Nessa laughed once, without humor.

Lady Mirelle Vaunt.

Everyone in the lower districts knew the name, although sensible people pretended they didn't. Mirelle owned legitimate galleries, questionable banks, several buildings that technically did not exist, and the Midnight Auction.

The Auction sold things normal markets refused to acknowledge could be owned.

Forgotten names.

Unfinished dreams.

A bride's certainty on her wedding morning.

The last five minutes of condemned men.

Once, allegedly, someone's Tuesday.

"Why would Mirelle buy an apprentice clockmaker's debt?" Nessa asked.

"I don't know."

"And why would she recall it tonight?"

"I don't know that either."

Nessa stared at him.

Tavi lifted both hands. "I swear."

He was nineteen, brilliant with gears, terrible with money, and physically incapable of lying to Nessa without scratching the left side of his nose.

His hands remained still.

She believed him.

Which made everything worse.

The first moonbell rang across Vespera.

Its deep note vibrated through the suspended streets.

Two bells remained.

Nessa stood.

"Where are you going?" Tavi asked.

"To commit several crimes in rapid succession."

"Nessa."

"I promise to arrange them by severity."

"You don't have nine years to give."

"Correct. I have twenty-four, and I'm planning to be selfish about them."

She crossed to the cupboard and removed a velvet pouch hidden behind a jar of tea.

Inside lay six tiny memory crystals.

Illegal ones.

Technically, forged memories were permitted if marked as illusions. Nessa's clients paid extra for the absence of markings.

She took out a crystal and held it between two fingers.

Warm summer light glowed inside it.

A false memory of a father attending his daughter's sixth birthday.

The father had actually been drunk in another city.

Nessa had made him smile perfectly.

For twelve minutes, the daughter had believed it.

Then the illusion had developed the usual fractures. The cake changed flavors when she remembered it twice. The father's coat acquired the wrong buttons. Genuine experience possessed a stubborn internal weight Nessa could imitate but never manufacture completely.

Still, wealthy clients adored prettier lies.

Nessa pocketed the crystals.

Tavi blocked the door.

"You're thinking about the Auction."

"I am thinking about taking an evening walk."

"In formal clothes?"

"I enjoy being overdressed near felonies."

"Nessa, nobody enters the Midnight Auction without an invitation."

She smiled.

"Good thing Baroness Elianor remembered giving me one."

Twenty minutes later, Nessa stepped from a moonlift into Vespera's highest commercial quarter wearing someone else's face.

Her illusion made her appear thirty years older, four inches taller, and approximately six fortunes richer.

Moonlight glittered across glass bridges suspended between marble towers. Elegant carriages floated over the avenues on ribbons of chronomantic light. People who had never sold a day of their lives discussed immortality beneath heated balconies.

Nessa hated the district immediately, which meant she was probably behaving naturally enough to pass as aristocracy.

The Midnight Auction occupied no permanent building.

Tonight, its entrance appeared inside an abandoned observatory between two respectable banks.

A masked attendant examined Nessa's forged invitation.

"Baroness Elianor Vey," he said.

"Unfortunately."

He glanced up.

Nessa smiled with precisely the amount of boredom she imagined rich people considered attractive.

The attendant bowed.

The door opened.

Beyond it waited midnight.

Not metaphorically.

The observatory vanished behind her.

Nessa entered an enormous circular hall beneath a sky containing no stars, only an immense silver moon suspended impossibly close overhead. Black balconies curved around a central stage. Hundreds of masked guests sat at tables illuminated by candles burning backward, wax climbing toward their flames.

Nessa's skin prickled.

Real chronomancy.

Expensive chronomancy.

The sort capable of stealing entire birthdays while everyone applauded.

"Welcome," said a woman's voice.

Lady Mirelle Vaunt descended onto the central stage beneath a rainfall of silver cards.

She wore a gown the color of spilled ink and a mask shaped like crescent horns.

"Tonight," Mirelle announced, "we offer only things their owners were foolish enough to lose."

Polite laughter circled the chamber.

Nessa scanned the display cabinets beside the stage.

There.

Lot Seven.

A memory crystal larger than her thumb rested beneath enchanted glass, glowing pale blue.

The auction catalogue described it as ONE PERFECT HOUR, ORIGIN SEALED.

On the lower market, something that concentrated could buy ten years of debt.

Possibly fifteen.

Nessa had no intention of bidding.

She only needed to steal it.

The first lots passed quickly.

A forgotten lullaby sold for three months of youth.

A prince purchased someone's ability to regret a particular decision.

Two sisters fought viciously over the memory of a summer neither had lived.

Nessa moved gradually around the balcony, approaching Lot Seven's cabinet.

Then a man stepped into her path.

He was not masked.

That alone made him unsettling.

He was tall, dressed entirely in black, with silver threading at his cuffs and dark hair falling carelessly over his forehead. His face was composed in that irritating way particular to people who expected the world to remain where they had left it.

Nessa knew him immediately.

Everyone did.

Rhydian Noct.

Keeper of Lost Hours.

Guardian of the Hour Vault.

Rumor claimed he could stop time.

Rumor also claimed nobody knew his age, birthplace, or favorite wine because he had apparently misplaced all three somewhere in history.

His gaze rested on Nessa.

Not her illusion.

Her.

"Baroness Vey," he said.

Nessa's pulse jumped.

"Keeper Noct."

"Interesting disguise."

Her smile froze.

"Excuse me?"

"The baroness is left-handed."

Nessa looked at the champagne glass in her right hand.

Damn.

Rhydian leaned closer.

"If you intend to steal Lot Seven," he murmured, "wait until the second blackout. The first is bait."

Then he walked away.

Nessa stared after him.

She had approximately fourteen questions and the immediate desire to stab him with a canapé fork.

Instead, Lady Mirelle struck her silver hammer.

"Lot Seven."

The glowing crystal rose from its cabinet.

Nessa's plan died instantly.

She had expected another hour before it appeared.

"One perfect hour," Mirelle said. "Untouched, unedited, and impossible to recreate. Opening bid: six years."

Hands rose.

"Seven."

"Eight."

"Nine."

Nessa watched her brother's life disappear beneath polite gestures.

Ten years.

Eleven.

Twelve.

The bidder at twelve wore a golden mask.

Nessa moved.

A thread of illusion slipped from her fingers toward the cabinet mechanism beneath the stage. A false reflection appeared inside its security prism, copying the magical signature of an authorized handler.

The lock flickered.

Almost.

Someone caught her wrist.

Rhydian.

"Don't," he said.

"I preferred you when you were helping."

"I was preventing you from dying during the first blackout."

"How thoughtful."

Onstage, Mirelle smiled.

"Thirteen years."

Nessa twisted her wrist free.

Then the room went dark.

Every candle vanished.

Someone screamed.

Nessa dropped beneath the balcony rail.

A blade passed through the space where her throat had been.

Rhydian seized her shoulder and pulled her sideways.

The candles reignited.

A masked guest lay dead three tables away.

Nobody reacted strongly enough for Nessa's comfort.

Mirelle merely sighed.

"The management reminds patrons that murder occurring before transfer of purchased goods may invalidate your bids."

Nessa stared.

"I hate rich people."

"A sensible prejudice," Rhydian said.

Mirelle raised the hammer.

"Thirteen years once. Thirteen years twice—"

Tavi had less than an hour before collection.

Nessa's panic overruled judgment.

She raised her hand.

"I bid my heart."

Silence swallowed the room.

Nessa immediately regretted every decision that had produced the sentence.

Mirelle did not laugh.

Neither did Rhydian.

The moon above the hall brightened.

A silver symbol ignited beneath Nessa's feet.

Her illusion shattered.

Her true face appeared before hundreds of masked strangers.

Mirelle's expression changed.

For the first time that evening, the auctioneer looked afraid.

"Nessa Quill," she whispered.

Nessa stepped backward.

"Actually, I've reconsidered."

The symbol climbed her legs like liquid moonlight.

Rhydian reached for her.

Too late.

Something inside Nessa's chest pulled violently forward.

Pain struck beneath her ribs.

She screamed.

A sphere of white-gold light emerged from her body, hovering between them.

Her heart-spark.

Ancient silver writing appeared across the floor.

Mirelle shouted, "Stop the contract!"

A second circle opened beneath Rhydian.

His eyes widened.

"I didn't bid."

"Neither did I!" Nessa shouted. "Not properly!"

The moon answered with a sound like distant thunder.

The heart-spark flew into Rhydian's chest.

The world stopped.

Every candle froze.

Every falling silver card halted in midair.

Every guest became motionless.

Only Nessa and Rhydian remained breathing.

A burning line of script formed around Nessa's wrist.

HEART CLAIMED.

DEBT RECOGNIZED.

KEEPER: RHYDIAN NOCT.

Nessa stared at the words.

Then at him.

"Give it back."

Rhydian looked genuinely horrified.

"I can't."

"That was the wrong answer."

"Nessa—"

"Give. It. Back."

A crack split the moon overhead.

Not the illusion in the auction hall.

The real moon.

For one impossible second, Nessa saw through the chamber ceiling to Vespera's night sky.

A dark fracture crossed the lunar surface.

Far below them, one of the enormous Moon Anchors groaned.

Rhydian turned toward the sound.

His face went pale.

"No," he whispered.

Nessa's anger faltered.

"What?"

The frozen auction hall trembled.

Somewhere beneath Vespera, an Anchor chain snapped.

And Rhydian Noct looked at Nessa as though her stolen heart had just become the least dangerous thing in the city.

"Someone has started killing the moon."