Chapter 28 · Mom Came With a Knife

“Mara Voss.”

The voice crawled out of the split concrete below us.

Not loud. It didn’t need to be. It slid under my skin anyway, cold and wet, like somebody had poured river water down my spine.

My wrist burned.

I looked down just in time to see the black chain around it pull tight.

“Don’t move,” Dorian said.

I almost laughed in his face.

Because of course that was what he said. Not sorry. Not I should’ve told you. Not your mother is alive and I knew for eleven years and somehow thought that was a thing we could talk about later.

Don’t move.

Like I was a bomb with bad manners.

The ground under East Dock groaned again. Broken rebar scraped against stone. Somewhere down in that hole, water slapped against concrete, slow and thick.

Sable had one hand pressed hard to her side. Blood kept slipping between her fingers.

“Elara,” she said sharply. “Get away from the edge.”

My mother was on her knees three feet from the crack, pale hair stuck to her bloody cheek.