Chapter 6 · The Claim

He said it again, slower, like the water might have washed the first time off.

"When it goes, I take you with me."

The pump vault threw his voice back off the wet concrete. The mark at my neck pulled in time with it. Behind him the river hit the grate, one fist after another, and the floodgate under that sound was no longer a threat. It was a countdown.

"You already claimed me," I said. "You don't get to claim the way I drown."

"I'm not letting you drown." Torin didn't move. He didn't have to. Cold iron at my back, heat pouring off him, the catwalk two feet wide and no ladder left in the wall. "You can hate me on dry ground. You don't get to do it under a river."

"I still don't hand you the child."

"I'm not asking you to hand it over on a grating." His hand spread, careful, over the wet wool at my stomach. The same hand as before. Not a new discovery. A man checking that the secret he'd already been told was still there. "I'm asking you to hold on to me when the wall goes.