Chapter 22 · The Dead Stop

The convoy's two blocks out when the crown mark decides it wants to finish what it started.

It crawls up my throat. Burns behind my eyes. I can taste metal and smoke and something older than both—something that's been waiting under the subway tunnels since before the first train ever ran.

Silas grabs my wrist. His mark's still there, black crown eating into his skin like it's trying to carve him open from the inside. "Don't pull from the throne again."

"I'm not pulling anything." My voice comes out wrong. Too many layers. "It's pulling me."

Mara's at the window, one hand pressed to the glass, the other still holding that blood-soaked rag against her side. "They're stopping."

"Where?" Silas doesn't let go of my wrist.

"Dead center of the intersection. All four vehicles." She turns, and her face is too pale. "They're just sitting there. Engines running. Nobody's getting out."

Grayson moves to the other window. He's still holding the core fragment, and I can feel it like a second heartbeat—mine and not mine.