Chapter 16 · Before the Bell Rings

The traitor's blood is still warm on my fingers when Kael drags me behind the gate pillar.

"What did he say?"

I can't breathe right. The words are stuck somewhere between my ribs and my throat. "Next bell. Your anchor kills him first."

Kael goes still. Not the kind of still that means he's thinking. The kind that means he's already decided.

"That's not happening."

"You don't know that." I wipe my hands on my pants. It doesn't help. "He knew I was the anchor. He knew about the resets. What if he's right?"

"Then we don't let the bell ring."

I almost laugh. It comes out wrong. "You can't stop time."

"No." He turns me by the shoulders, hard enough that I have to look at him. "But I can stop you from dying before it does."

There's smoke in his hair. Ash on his jaw. His hands are shaking and he doesn't even know it.

I should tell him the rest. That the traitor smiled when he said it. That he wasn't guessing.

But Mira's voice crackles through the comm before I can.

"Kael. East perimeter's collapsing. We've got maybe ten minutes before they breach the inner ward."