Chapter 40. Knives Without Saints

They opened House Knife with a crowbar and a prayer. The prayer didn’t ask for forgiveness. It asked for inventory.

Rhea led point, because she doesn’t mind being the first to be hated. Syra directed the guard—two at each entrance, four for the roofline, a sweep team for the cellar. Ilyra kept the chalk and the ledger, because if you don’t write down what you take, eventually someone says you stole it.

The top floor smelled like oil and peppermint and sweat left to dry on cloth. The walls had once been lined with saint-niches; they were—all of them—empty, the plaster revealing clean rectangles where weight had hung for years. A single thin filament of glass ran across the ceiling like a spider proud of one thread.

“Pull it,” Rhea said.

I did. It sang as it came down—high and petty. It cut my palm shallow. The cut bled like it was proud of itself. Magic tugged at the edges of the wound, testing for ritual. I let it burn, then breathed long enough for the ache