Chapter 23 · Untitled Chapter

"She's not coming."

Cyrus stood twenty feet from the checkpoint, watching Kael through the shrinking gap. Dust churned behind her where Lien had dragged the children away. The gate groaned overhead, hydraulics hissing. Thirty seconds. Maybe less.

Kael hadn't moved. Blood striped her coat—not hers—and her blade stayed locked in her fist. Black ink crawled up her throat, darker than it had been that morning.

Arch kept his rifle lowered but ready. Orin and two others guarded the hut. Rhys had gone pale. Cyrus's confession—the one that made them all accomplices or corpses—hung between them.

"She's bleeding out on her feet," Cyrus said. "You see that?"

"I see it."

"Then do something."

Arch's mouth tightened. "Like what?"

Cyrus stepped forward.

"Vale."

The hand on Arch's rifle shifted.

Cyrus kept walking. He passed Arch, passed Orin, who jerked his muzzle up and then froze. Cyrus didn't look at them. He looked at Kael.

Her eyes followed him, wary and confused.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

He stopped ten feet away. Close enough to see the hairline cracks in the ink at her throat. Close enough to watch her pulse pound beneath them.

"I'm staying."

Her jaw clenched. "Don't be stupid."