Chapter 28 · The Throne Burns

"Choose."

Nora's knees hit the platform. Heat punched through her boots. Every pipe in the chamber shook with the beat inside her chest.

The engine's voice filled her skull.

*Restart the system. Restore authorized command. Preserve the city. Sacrifice the key.*

"You hear it, don't you?" Evelyn called from across the broken bridge. Her voice was thin. Tired. Still proud. "The engine knows what you are. It knows what has to happen."

Nora looked down at her ribs. A strand of blue-white light ran from the place where her heart had been cut open, straight into the ancient machine. It pulsed with her blood.

Her blood. Not the council's. Not Evelyn's.

Hers.

Samuel pressed a hand to his shot shoulder. Blood soaked through his coat, dripped between the metal plates under him.

"Nora," he said, voice rough. "Don't listen to her. Listen to yourself."

"I am listening. That's the problem."

The engine boomed. Far above, the whole city groaned. Water pumps screamed awake. Rails snapped into line.