Chapter 24 · Three More Chimes

"Don't you dare close your eyes."

Sona had Ethlin's head in her lap, one hand pressed hard against the wound under her ribs. Blood soaked through her sleeve to the elbow. Hot. Sticky. Too much.

"Ethlin. Look at me."

Ethlin's mouth opened and what came out wasn't air. Red. Thin. Running down her chin in a line that caught the torchlight.

Rhys dropped to his knees on her other side and the ledger in his skull started scrolling. Fast. Lines of names stacking up behind his eyes like a debt coming due.

"Move," he said.

Two fingers against her throat. Pulse there, but wrong. Too far apart.

"Sona, I need light."

"You need to explain why you knew Vittal would break and you let me walk into that room blind."

She didn't move her hand off the wound. Her voice was flat and it was worse than shouting.

"We'll get to that."

He tore Ethlin's collar open, checked the wound.

Not the kind you walked away from.

He'd seen this line in the ledger before. Loop six. Loop seven. Always the same page, always the same hour past midnight.

Ethlin's fingers found his wrist.