Chapter 30 · Your Sister Remembers

"You're not going in there."

Eira didn't even look up from the table. She kept spreading out the torn map pieces like she was setting a dinner table. Blood smears marked three of the edges.

"Rowan," she said. "Shut up."

"I'm serious."

"So am I." She lined up two more scraps. Her hands didn't shake. Mine did. "You think I walked all the way to Crowe's tower for the view?"

Mara leaned against the doorframe behind me, arms crossed. She hadn't said a word since we dragged Eira back here. The safe house smelled like rust and old smoke. My sister smelled like seawater and something sharper. Something wrong.

"You're marked," I said. "Every face out there has a bell mark now. You walk into that tower and—"

"And what?" Eira finally looked at me. The black mark sat just below her left ear, a perfect circle with a crack running through it. Same as mine. Same as Mara's. "You think I don't know what I'm wearing?"

"Then you know what happens when Crowe gets his hands on another key."

"I know what happens when he gets all of them." She slammed her palm down on the table.