Chapter 6
Jessie wakes up on marble.
Cold. Polished. Expensive marble.
For a terrifying second, she thinks she’s dead.
Then she breathes.
Air rushes into her lungs—clean, scented faintly with citrus and money. Her head pounds, but her body is intact. No pain. No blood. No mall.
She pushes herself upright.
She’s inside a vast atrium that looks like the lobby of a five-star hotel collided with a museum. Towering glass walls curve upward into a ceiling she can’t see. Water trickles down vertical stone slabs in controlled, elegant streams. Everywhere she looks, there’s light—soft, deliberate, flattering.
“What the hell…” she whispers.
Her voice echoes.
Jessie stands slowly, heart racing.
She’s still wearing her sneakers, her hoodie, her gym shorts. She looks wildly out of place.
A movement catches her eye.
Someone is swimming.
There’s an indoor pool stretching along one side of the atrium, the water impossibly blue, edged in gold tile. A man surfaces at the far end, dark hair slicked back, muscles flexing as he pulls himself out.
He is very, very shirtless.
Jessie freezes.
He turns.
Smiles.
“Well,” he says, voice smooth and amused. “You’re new.”
She stares. Because she’s human. Because he’s dripping water. Because he looks like he walked out of a cologne ad and into her personal nightmare.
“Where am I?” she demands.
He grabs a towel, slinging it low around his hips with the kind of confidence that suggests he knows exactly what effect it has.
“That depends,” he says. “Do you want the honest answer, or the comforting one?”
Jessie crosses her arms. “Try honest.”
He steps closer, barefoot on marble, eyes sharp and curious. “You’re where the book sends what it can’t eat yet.”
Her blood runs cold. “The book.”
He nods. “Thought so.”
“You know about it?”
He laughs softly. “Everyone here does.”
Jessie scans the atrium again. “Where is ‘here’?”
He gestures expansively. “The Gilded Exchange.”
She snorts despite herself. “That sounds fake.”
“Everything important does,” he replies.
They walk.
Jessie follows him past glass elevators, past lounges filled with people dressed in designer clothes who look wrong—too still, too watchful. Every surface gleams. Every detail screams obscene wealth.
“People come here,” the man continues, “when something powerful doesn’t know what to do with them yet. When they’re… pending.”
“Pending for what?”
He stops near a balcony overlooking the city.
Jessie’s breath catches.
Outside isn’t Ohio.
It’s a massive skyline—sleek towers, neon lights, a city that pulses with money and magic and hunger. Flying vehicles glide between buildings. Fireworks explode soundlessly over a river of gold light.
“This place exists between debts,” he says. “Between decisions.”
Jessie turns to him sharply. “What’s the price?”
Now his smile fades.
“That’s the question.”
She swallows. “What’s your name?”
He hesitates. Just a beat.
“Lucas,” he says. “For now.”
Back in Ohio, Martha hasn’t moved in hours.
She’s sitting on the cold tile of the ruined food court, staring at the place where Jessie vanished.
The mall is quiet again—but not dead.
It’s listening.
Evan crouches nearby, face buried in his hands. Sophie stands apart, hugging herself, the book clutched to her chest like a heart that might still beat.
“I didn’t know it would take her,” Sophie says, voice thin. “I swear.”
Martha looks up slowly.
“You always know,” she says. “You just don’t care until it costs you.”
Sophie flinches. “That’s not fair.”
“Neither is this,” Martha snaps, gesturing at the destruction, the broken skylight, the bloodstained tiles that haven’t fully faded. “You don’t get to play queen and then cry when the guillotine shows up.”
Evan looks up, eyes red. “Sophie… I can’t hear it anymore.”
She stiffens. “What do you mean?”
“The voice,” he says. “It’s gone. It’s like—” He swallows. “Like something snapped.”
The book twitches in Sophie’s hands.
Martha notices.
Her breath catches. “It doesn’t need you right now.”
Sophie’s fingers tighten. “That’s not true.”
Martha stands, legs shaky but determined. “You were never in control. It was just letting you think you were.”
The mall lights flicker once.
Then every storefront screen turns on simultaneously.
A single message scrolls across them:
THE EXCHANGE IS OPEN.
Martha feels it like a hook in her chest.
“There,” she whispers. “That’s where Jessie is.”
Sophie stares at the screens. Fear finally cracks her composure. “We can’t go there.”
“We have to,” Martha says.
Evan rises unsteadily. “I’m coming.”
Sophie rounds on him. “No. You’re staying.”
“For once,” he says quietly, “I’m choosing myself.”
The book vibrates.
Hard.
Sophie gasps, dropping it.
It slams open on the tile.
Pages flip wildly.
Then stop.
A new spell burns itself into the paper, letters carving deep like scars.
TO ENTER THE EXCHANGE,
ONE MUST OFFER
WHAT THE BOOK CANNOT TAKE.
Martha reads it aloud.
Her hands start to shake.
“What does that mean?” Evan asks.
Martha looks up at Sophie.
And understands.
“You,” she says.
Sophie steps back. “No.”
“The book can’t take you,” Martha continues, voice hollow. “You gave yourself willingly. That’s why it needs someone else.”
The mall rumbles.
The exits unlock.
The screens flash again.
ONE HOUR.
Sophie shakes her head violently. “You can’t ask this of me.”
Martha’s eyes burn. “Jessie didn’t get asked.”
The book slides across the floor—toward Sophie.
It wants her.
Sophie backs up.
Trips.
Falls.
Evan reaches for her—but the mall floor splits between them.
Sophie screams.
Martha watches, heart shattering, as the book rises into the air, pages flapping like wings.
And somewhere far above Ohio—
In a city of glass and gold—
Lucas leans close to Jessie and murmurs,
“They’re coming for you.”
She meets his gaze, pulse racing.
“Good,” she says. “Because I’m not leaving alone.”
The skyline outside fractures.
The Exchange alarms begin to ring.
And the price finally reveals itself.
