Chapter 16 · The Hollow Cure - Chapter 16: She's The Cure

"Hand her over, Kael. Hand her over and the city lives. Keep her and you kill everyone."

Aldrus didn't shout it. He just said it. Flat. Like he'd already done the math and we were the remainder.

I had Lyra against the altar and my back to it. Her hand was locked in mine. Cold. Too cold. The crystal crawling up her throat was pulsing wrong — slow, then nothing, then one hard thud.

"She's not a thing you hand over," I said. "She's not your cure. She's not your offering."

"Everything is an offering," Aldrus said. He had six Inquisitors behind him and the whole doorway was sealing itself shut with crystal veins. Eating the stone. Eating the air. "You of all people should know that, forbidden surgeon."

"Don't call me that," I snapped. "You don't get to call me that."

"What should I call you?" He smiled. That clean, white-coat smile. Not a speck on him. That's how you knew he was the monster. "The man who rewrote her veins and made her perfect? The brain told you, didn't it? The dead man's brain you cracked open like a walnut."

Lyra flinched. I felt it through her fingers.