Chapter 26 · The Vault Bites Back

“Say it again.”

Nessa had Dorian pinned against the cracked vault door with one hand twisted in his coat.

Blood ran from the corner of his mouth. His face had gone too pale under the courtyard lamps, and those black veins were crawling up his throat again. But he still looked at her like she was the dangerous thing here.

Maybe she was.

“You gave it to me?” she said. “Before the purge. Before my brother disappeared. Before they dragged me into a trial and stamped a death mark on my neck?”

Dorian’s jaw worked once.

Behind her, Jace made a broken sound. Cael had both arms around him, trying to keep him upright while Elias pressed a shaking hand over the wound in his side. The courtyard was a mess of bodies, burned sigils, spilled blood, and the sharp stink of iron.

Sable stood beyond the dead fountain with her coat still clean somehow.

That pissed Nessa off almost as much as everything else.

“I gave you a fragment,” Dorian said.

Nessa laughed once. No humor in it. “Oh, good. A fragment. That makes the death sentence feel way more reasonable.