Chapter 20 · Now He Remembers

His hand closed around her wrist before his eyes even finished opening.

"You should've run when I told you to." Same words. Word for word. The ones he said right before he put the sword through her twelfth death.

"Kael." She kept her voice flat, even though her heart was trying to climb out through her throat. "Let go of me."

He didn't. His eyes were open now, but they weren't looking at her. They were looking through her, at some other version of tonight that already happened.

"I told you the terms." His grip tightened, thumb pressing hard against the bone of her wrist. "You don't get to negotiate with me twice."

"That wasn't me." She twisted, tried to break the hold, couldn't. "That was a loop. Look at my face, not hers."

For one second his eyes cleared. Then they slid somewhere else again, and his other hand came up toward her throat, slow, almost gentle, like he'd done this so many times his body didn't need him thinking about it anymore.

She shoved the key up between them, flat against his chest, right over his heart.

"You want to strangle a spy," she said, "or you want