Chapter 23 · The Seal That Eats

"Don't touch the seal, Mara." Dax caught my wrist before my fingers reached the black ring carved into the altar.

His grip was hot. Too hot. Blood had soaked through his coat and dripped between our boots, but he still had enough strength to shove me back.

The archive ceiling cracked above us.

A stone shelf dropped behind my shoulder and smashed into the floor. Pages burst into the air. Every one of them carried a half-finished vow in red ink.

"Let go," I snapped.

"You break that ring, the whole archive comes down."

"It's already coming down."

"Because the seal knows you're here."

His jaw tightened. The black lines under his skin had crawled from his ribs to his throat. They moved when he breathed, thin and alive, like ink searching for a vein.

I looked at the ring again. It covered the center of the altar, locking the stone lid over whatever the old vow-keepers had buried beneath it.

"You said the seal could free you," I said.

"I said it might."

"You left out the part where I get crushed by a library."

"I was busy bleeding."

"You always have an excuse.