Chapter 25 · A Testimony in Flesh

"Take your hand off the boy, Sylvia, or I will cut the shard out through his chest."

The inquisitor's knife pressed against the child's collar. Not hard enough to draw blood. Just enough to make the threat real.

Sylvia stopped three steps from the examination table.

The boy couldn't have been older than eight. His wrists were tied with silver thread. A black crystal shard pulsed beneath his ribs, throwing a sick blue light across his small face. Every pulse made his back jerk against the restraints.

Cassian spoke inside her head, low and sharp.

"He knows exactly where to hurt you."

"I noticed."

"Then stop standing there."

"You want me to rush a blade?"

"I want you to stop letting lesser men decide who dies."

The inquisitor smiled. He wore the white coat of the Imperial Medical Court, but his gloves were stained with old blood. Augustus never bothered to hide the work behind his authority.

"Still arguing with your invisible king?" he asked. "How sweet. Does he tell you which patient to save?"

Sylvia's fingers tightened around the silver hook hanging from her belt.

"You already tried to remove the shard," she said. "You failed.