Chapter 20 · Refresh

"Give me the page, Rowan." Callum's hand hits the shelf beside my head, close enough that the draft off his arm smells like rain and copper. "I don't have time for you to play custodian tonight."

"It's not a page. It's the registry." I hold the ledger flat against my chest like that'll stop him from just taking it. "You want me to erase a bond because the port board is nervous. That's not custody, that's arson."

"Call it whatever you want." His jaw ticks. Up close, under the archive's dead fluorescent light, I can see the burn still healing at his collar, the same shape as the one under my own shirt. Matching scars from the same night. "Sign the release. The board meets at nine."

"No."

One word. It lands harder than I mean it to, because his hand comes off the shelf and closes around my wrist instead, the exact spot where the mark used to be raised and hot, and even now, months rejected, it still jumps like it remembers him.

"You don't get to say no to this." His voice drops, rough at the edges. "I said it in the chapel in front of everyone.