Chapter 16 · Don't Die for Me

The second switch did nothing Marcus could see. No new lights, no grinding gears. Just a low hum that made his teeth ache.

Then the Moonspindle started singing.

Not music. Not anything close. It was the sound of a thousand voices all trying to remember the same word and failing, layered over each other until the air itself felt wrong. Marcus pressed his hands to his ears. Didn't help. The sound wasn't coming from outside.

Nera screamed.

She was on her knees in the center of the chamber, both hands clawing at the steel collar around her neck. The collar wasn't new. Marcus had seen it when they first dragged her in, assumed it was some kind of prisoner marking. Now it was glowing the same sickly green as the Moonspindle's core, and thin lines of light were crawling up her throat like veins.

"What did you do?" Marcus spun on Cassian.

Cassian stood by the control panel, hands in his coat pockets, looking pleased. "Activated the resonance anchor. She's tuned to the device now. If it dies, she dies. If you break it, she breaks." He tilted his head. "You fixed the core. Good work.