Chapter 32 · The Real Keyholder

Briar's got the gun on me. Her hand's steady. Mine aren't.

The neural disruptor's cold against my temple. My old self is still in there, riding my motor cortex like she owns it. She does. She owned it first.

"Do it," I say. Don't know if I'm talking to Briar or the thing in my head.

Briar's jaw tightens. "Sable—"

"She's going to erase the interface. Cut the chain. You know what happens then." My voice cracks. The old me is pushing, trying to thumb the disruptor's trigger. My hand jerks. "Star's debt comes due. The whole fleet pays."

"I know."

"So shoot."

Briar doesn't move. The server room hums around us. Cooling fans. Data streams I can taste on the back of my tongue. The vault's still singing somewhere behind the wall, that four-hundred-year hum I've been hearing since I woke up.

"She won't," my mouth says. Not my words. Old Sable's leaking through. "She never could. That's why I kept her."

Briar's finger slides onto the trigger.

I feel it. The old me, the real me, the first Sable—she's scared. She didn't think Briar would actually do it.

Good.

I slam my head sideways into the server rack.