Chapter 23 · The Key's Under My Skin

The key wouldn't come out of my hand.

I tried. Twice. Once in the alley behind the hotel while Nina was still coughing up black water, and again in the back of her ambulance while she told me to stop picking at it. The thing sat right under the skin of my palm, a dark line like a brand, like something tattooed in ash. When I pressed it, it moved. When I didn't, it burned.

Every door in the city was still open. I could feel them. All of them. The apartment doors and the car doors and the ones that shouldn't exist, the ones cut into brick and air. They were all breathing.

Elias was waiting outside Nina's place when we got there. He looked worse. The black had crept up past his collarbone now, and his left hand didn't move right anymore. He was leaning against the railing like he needed it.

I walked right past him.

"Mara."

I kept going.

"Mara, we need to talk."

I stopped. Didn't turn around. Nina was unlocking the door behind me, and I could hear her keys shaking.

"You knew," I said.

Silence.

"You knew what happened to Lena.