Chapter 7 · The Dead List Has One Name Missing

“Get up, Mara. We’ve got three minutes before the council locks the district.”

Kael’s hand clamped around my arm, hauling me away from the dead rift core. My knees buckled. The black lines under my skin flared white-hot, and Kael jerked at the same instant—like a hook had just been driven through his ribs.

“Let go!” I shoved his chest. “You’re bleeding.”

“So are you.”

“I noticed.”

Another red mark blinked across the city map on Noah’s cracked tablet. Then another. The twenty-seventh rift pulsed at the edge of Glasshaven, swallowing three blocks of housing in a spreading circle of crimson light.

Noah’s voice snapped through my comm bead. “You two done trying to kill each other? I found Ian.”

Kael’s grip tightened. “Where?”

“Council detention. Lower archive level. His name just hit the dead list.”

My stomach dropped. “Ian Vale?”

“Unless Glasshaven has two former council archivists hiding in the same cell, yeah.” Noah’s breathing was fast. “They’re moving him in ninety seconds.”

“To where?”

“The erase room.”

Kael’s face went cold. Colder than when he’d come to execute me. “They don’t move witnesses to an erase room.”

“No?” Noah countered.