The word hangs above my shadow like a verdict carved into glass.
**UNCLAIMED.**
My lungs still burn from the forced breath, my fingers shake, my heart is trying to punch its way out of my chest—
but all of that fades against the cold weight of that word.
Unclaimed.
Like something left on a doorstep.
Like a package no one dared sign for.
Ardan's hands are still on my shoulders. His grip has gone slack. He's staring at the word as if it's a gun pointed at his head.
"That's… impossible," he repeats, voice hollow. "You should not be that."
The nameless girl squeezes my wrist, as if she's afraid I'll evaporate again.
"What does it mean?" she whispers. "What's 'unclaimed'?"
My throat is dry. "I thought something already—" I swallow. "Didn't that… thing… claim me when I begged to live?"
"It tried," Ardan says quietly.
His eyes finally tear away from the word over my shadow and lock onto my face. I don't like what I see there.
Not anger.
Not annoyance.
Fear.
"Contracts don't disappear," he says. "If something answered you, the mark should be clear. Owned. Tagged. Written above you like a brand. But this…"
He nods toward the word.
"…means the seal broke before the claim finished."
"That sounds… good?" I say weakly.
"Good?" His laugh is sharp and humorless. "No, Mark. No. 'Unclaimed' doesn't mean free. It means disputed. If you're unclaimed after a Contract has been initiated, it means the original claimant was interrupted."
The rooftop suddenly feels smaller.
"Interrupted by what?" the girl asks.
Ardan looks at me. "That's the question, isn't it?"
Before I can answer, the open rooftop door creaks.
All three of us flinch.
The shadow spilling from the doorway is thicker now, more defined. It stretches out across the gravel like spilled oil, stopping just short of my feet.
Above it, the word **RETURNED** flickers.
Another word begins to form beneath it, glitching in and out of the dark.
**WAIT–**
**HERE–**
**MINE–**
The letters fight each other.
The air grows colder with every failed attempt.
Ardan moves without thinking. He steps in front of me, one arm thrown out to push both me and the girl back.
"Stay behind me," he says. His voice is tight, controlled to the point of shaking. "If it steps through while you're in this state, we won't have time to renegotiate anything."
"What is it?" I whisper.
"The first claimant," he says. "Or what's left of it."
The nameless girl shudders. "It followed his thread?"
"Of course it did," Ardan mutters. "He pulled himself back. The Contract pulled with him. Like gum."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" I say.
"No," he replies. "I no longer specialize in making anyone feel better."
The shadow at the doorway twitches.
The half-formed word over it flares and stabilizes at last:
**WAITING.**
Then a second word appears beneath it—
**ANGRY.**
The metal door doesn't move. No body comes through. But the pressure in the air sharpens, like the edge of a knife pressed against the back of my neck.
"You need to leave the roof," Ardan says. "Now."
My legs wobble. "I don't think I can."
The girl tightens her grip on me. "He barely breathes. He'll collapse."
"Then drag him," Ardan says.
Before she can answer, the shadow at the door surges forward an inch.
Not far.
Not fast.
But enough to make every instinct in me scream.
The words above it shimmer again.
**WAITING**
**ANGRY**
**OWED**
My chest constricts.
"That's the Contract, isn't it?" I whisper. "The thing that answered?"
"Not fully," Ardan says. "It can't cross the threshold because your status changed. It can smell you. But it can't collect."
"Because I'm… unclaimed?"
"Because you're unclaimed," he confirms.
He glances at the word over my shadow again.
"Which means," he adds quietly, "everything else can smell you too."
I feel suddenly very, very small.
"So what now?" I ask. "I'm just… open meat? Free sample day?"
The girl hisses through her teeth. "That isn't funny."
"I'm not trying to be funny," I snap. "I'm trying not to pass out."
The shadow at the doorway ripples, anger thrumming through it like a pulse. The word **OWED** brightens until it hurts to look at.
Ardan exhale slowly, then lifts his hand.
"I don't like doing this," he mutters. "It makes noise."
"Noise?" I ask.
"For the ones who don't need doors," he says.
Before I can ask what that means, a soft glow gathers around his fingers. Not the sharp white blade he used on the Collector—this is different. It's heavier. Thicker. The light bends toward his hand as if gravity reversed.
The shadow at the door recoils.
Above it, the word **WAITING** flickers between that and another:
**WATCHING.**
Ardan's tone drops into something almost ceremonial.
"By the ledger of what was written," he says, "and by the gaps in the ink, I invoke the clause of delay. You had your chance to seal. You failed."
The air vibrates.
"I claim the interim," he finishes. "As his acting accountant."
The word over the doorway's shadow spasms.
**OWED** shatters into fragments, the letters dissolving like burned paper.
The pressure lessens.
The shadow retreats half an inch.
Not gone.
Not banished.
Just… held.
The nameless girl exhales a breath she'd been holding so long her lips turned white.
"That buys us time," she whispers.
"Yes," Ardan says. His face looks older in the rooftop light. "And paints an even brighter target on him."
I swallow. "You keep saying that. Target for who?"
He looks at me for a long moment.
"For anything that trades in names," he says. "Collectors, scavengers, devourers, witnesses, brokers. Higher things. Lower things. Anything that understands what *unclaimed* means."
"And what does it mean?" I ask.
"It means you're a vacancy," he says softly. "A house nobody officially owns but everybody wants to break into."
The wind gusts, cold and sharp.
Down in the city, countless tiny words shimmer above countless shadows. I can almost feel them turning, like eyes.
The girl steps closer, her shoulder pressing against my arm. Her word—**BOUND**—flickers weakly above her shadow, as if it's struggling to hold.
"If he's unclaimed," she says slowly, "then what am I?"
Ardan stares at her.
"You," he says, "are a mistake."
She flinches, like he slapped her.
"You weren't supposed to attach," he continues, softer this time. "Tethers don't appear before a name settles. But he pulled you in anyway. Now your thread is looped through his."
"Can you cut it?" I ask quickly.
They both stare at me.
The girl's grip on my wrist tightens until it hurts.
"I mean," I stammer, "if it puts her in danger—"
"Cutting it would kill her," Ardan says flatly. "And probably you."
"Probably?" I echo.
He shrugs one shoulder. "I haven't had many unclaimed apprentices."
My stomach flips.
"So we're stuck like this," the girl says. She tries to sound annoyed. It mostly comes out scared.
"For now," Ardan says. "Until we figure out who interrupted your original claimant and why your status froze in this gap."
A shiver crawls up my spine.
"The Witness," I whisper.
Both of them look at me.
"What?" Ardan asks.
"In the Between," I say. "There was a girl. White hair. Dark eyes. Word above her shadow: WITNESS. She said… she said the thing that pulled me wasn't what spoke. Just its breath."
Ardan goes perfectly still.
The shadow at the doorway trembles.
"You didn't tell me you saw one of them," he says quietly.
"One of who?"
"Witnesses," he says. "They don't intervene. They don't talk. They don't *warn*."
"She did," I say. "She told me not to trust the voice that sounded like someone I loved. She told me to pull my thread back."
The nameless girl sucks in a breath. "If a Witness broke protocol for you…"
"That's why it's angry," Ardan finishes.
He nods toward the doorway.
"That thing. Your original claimant. The Witness cut across its path. No wonder it couldn't finish the claim."
The shadow at the door pulses in time with my heartbeat.
The word above it changes again:
**OWED**
**DENIED**
**PATIENCE**
"It's not going away, is it?" I ask.
"No," Ardan says. "It will circle. Wait. Look for loopholes. You are a debt that slipped off its ledger, and entities like that do not forget."
The wind picks up.
For a heartbeat, the giant word in the sky from before—WATCHING—flickers back into existence, faint but present.
Just long enough for me to see that it isn't looking at the city anymore.
It's looking at us.
At me.
"What do we do now?" I ask.
Ardan drops his hand, the glow fading.
"Now," he says, "we run before everything that just felt that caretaking clause wake up decides to come inspect the merchandise."
He turns toward the stairwell.
"Down, off the roof. Out of the hospital. We find somewhere noisy enough that your status doesn't echo through every layer."
The girl tugs on my arm. "Can you walk?"
"I don't know," I admit.
"Try anyway," Ardan says.
We take one step toward the stairwell door.
Just one.
And then every word above every shadow in sight shivers.
All of them.
The city's.
The rooftop's.
Even my own.
They freeze, then tilt—
Not toward the doorway.
Not toward Ardan.
Toward me.
A single new word sears itself into the air above us, written not in white or red or silver, but in something that hurts to look at:
**BIDDING.**
My veins turn to ice.
"What does that mean?" I whisper.
Ardan doesn't answer.
His face says enough.
The shadow at the rooftop door stretches another inch, trembling.
And somewhere far above, where the sky is nothing but a blank, wordless sheet, something starts to write again.