Chapter 18 · The Dead Ain't Dead

"Drop the knife, Mara."

Cael's hand locked around my wrist before I could put the blade through Toby's throat.

"Let go of me," I snarled. "He sold me. Again."

"I know," he said. "And if you kill him here, we get nothing."

Toby was flat against the cage wall, hands up, eyes wide. Sweat ran down his neck. The bloody Crown badge he'd shoved at me last night was still burning a hole in my pocket.

"Mara, come on," Toby choked out. "You think I wanted to? They had a gun to my head. Evelyn's people. They said they'd burn the whole under-market if I didn't give them your route."

"So you gave them my route," I said. My voice was shaking. The black fire under my skin was shaking too, crawling up my forearm toward my elbow. "You gave them me."

"I gave them a fake route!" he said. "I swear. I sent them to the old tannery. That's why you're still breathing, yeah?"

Cael didn't let go. His thumb pressed hard into my pulse. Not to hurt me. To steady me.

"Mara. Breathe with me," he said, low. "In. Out. You feel that? That's me. I'm right here."