Chapter 56 · The Rankless Commander

"If you take off that insignia, they won't let you back in." I caught Dorian's wrist before he could unfasten the silver rail badge from his coat.

The engine bucked beneath us. Metal shrieked somewhere behind the cab.

Ahead, the relay room waited behind two armed guards—and one order that could send my brother's prison car straight into the dead line.

Dorian looked down at my hand.

His pulse slammed against my fingers.

"They won't let me in as an officer," he said. "That's the point."

"You got a better plan?"

"I've got a worse one."

He pulled free and tore the badge from his coat.

The silver disk hit the floor between our boots.

For one second, Dorian Vale stood without a rank.

No commander bars. No authority stitched across his shoulders. Just a bloodstained coat, a loaded pistol, and the sharp, exhausted face that had spent the last thirty days ordering me around under our marriage contract.

My fingers closed around the iron case strapped to my ribs.

"You lose your command, you lose the train," I said.

"The train's already lost if we don't cut that relay.