Chapter 11 · The Name on the Screen

"Take your hand off the upload key, Lia."

Calian caught my wrist before my finger touched the glass.

His grip was hard enough to stop me, not hard enough to bruise. Not yet. His palm burned against my skin, hot and rough from the command scar that had split it open an hour ago.

I looked down at our hands. Then I looked at him.

"You want to explain why the man sworn to protect me is stopping me from exposing a citywide crime?"

"I want you alive."

"That ship sank three disasters ago."

His jaw tightened. The black lines running from his palm to his thumb pulsed once beneath his skin.

The house stone sat on the table between us, no bigger than my fist. Its cracked surface held the copied records I had spent three nights pulling from dead emergency channels, buried maintenance logs, and one stolen council archive.

The records showed the same thing every time.

The collapses were planned.

The flood gates opened late on purpose. The firebreaks failed after someone changed the material orders.