Chapter 8 · Untitled Chapter

"Put the gun down, Tessa."

Cael's voice cracked behind the barrel.

"You don't know what that file means."

"I know what it says." Her finger tightened on the trigger. "Your first pulse strike happened the same day my mother died."

Cael stood three steps away, one hand clamped over his side. Blood leaked between his fingers and dripped onto the broken tile.

His other hand stayed raised.

Like an open palm could stop a bullet.

It couldn't.

The ruined archive shook. Dust slid from the ceiling. Beyond the scorched shelves, boots pounded closer.

Wardens.

And Gray Hand hunters.

Niko had bought them thirty seconds when he drove the escape car into the archive core. Thirty seconds. One burning vehicle. A trail of destroyed records.

Tessa had dragged the only surviving file fragment from the wreckage.

Now she had a gun aimed at the man who might've killed her mother.

"Say it," she said. "Say you did it."

Cael's jaw locked. "I didn't."

"The record says you did."

"The record says my pulse hit the casualty zone. It doesn't say I chose the target."

"Oh, good. That's your defense?" She gave a sharp, ugly laugh. "The magic murdered them by accident?"