Chapter 8 · Forbidden Echoes

"Don't look at it." Lyra ripped her sleeve down so hard the seam split. "I said don't fucking look, Cane."

Cane already had her wrist. His fingers locked around it, warm, too tight to shake off. He didn't let go.

"Too late," he said. "You were scratching at it in your sleep. You think I didn't hear?"

"Let go of me!" She twisted, shoulder slamming into the steel wall of the pod. The whole room was six feet by six feet. One bunk. One flickering decon light. Steam still hissing off their suits. There was nowhere to go. "It's nothing. It's just the pressure. It'll fade."

"Bullshit." He dragged her hand up between them, palm up, and pushed the sleeve back. The black cracks were there. Thin as hair at her wrist, branching up her forearm like frozen lightning. The skin around them was cold. Wrong cold. "This isn't pressure. This is the price. You knew this would happen."

Lyra stared at the lines on her own skin and her breath hitched. Once. Hard.

"Don't," she whispered. "Don't say it like that."

"Like what?