Chapter 20 · She Is the Missing Key

"Get it out." Mara's palm was on fire. The black key wasn't sitting in her hand anymore. It was inside her skin, burning through bone, spreading like ink under glass.

Adrian grabbed her wrist. "Hold still."

"I said get it out."

"I'm trying." His fingers dug into her forearm, steadying her hand under the light. The key sat flush with her palm now, black metal fused to flesh. He pulled a thin pick from his belt. "This is going to hurt."

"Everything already hurts."

He pressed the pick against the edge of the key. Her hand spasmed. The pick clattered to the floor.

"Again," she said.

"Mara—"

"Do it again."

He bent down, scooped up the pick, and this time he didn't warn her. He wedged the tip under the key's edge and pried. Her vision went white. She heard herself scream, felt his arm lock around her shoulders to keep her upright, and then the pain folded into something worse.

Cold.

The kind that came from the other side of the breach.

"It's not coming out," Adrian said. His voice sounded far away now. "It's not a foreign object anymore. It's reading you as the anchor.