Chapter 12 · The Bell Tower Knows

"Don't touch me."

Calder's voice came out hoarse, almost shredded, and Mara froze with her hand halfway to his shoulder. They were crouched in the bell tower's shadow, stone dust still falling around them like dirty snow. The ledger had spit them out three blocks north of Vale's office, right into the old district where the ward-core used to hum beneath the streets.

Used to. Past tense. Because someone ripped it out, and everyone thought Calder did it.

"Calder—"

"I mean it." He pulled his arm tight against his ribs, wings folded so hard the cracked membrane looked ready to tear clean through. "The cuff's still live. You get too close when I'm like this, it'll drag you under."

Mara looked down at the iron band on her wrist. It wasn't glowing, but she could feel it now—a low, ugly vibration that tasted like copper and old fear. The same vibration she'd felt when the ledger started eating her father's face out of her memory, right before Calder shoved one of his own in to stop it.

"What did you give it?" she asked.

Calder didn't answer.