Chapter 36 · The Tower’s Price

The last flicker of Elias Vey’s image died inside the black box.

For one breath, the archive held its silence.

Then the floor beneath them screamed.

A blue-white current tore through the iron grating, racing along the walls in branching veins. Dust leaped from the shelves. Thousands of sealed judgment files shuddered in their cabinets, their brass clasps snapping open one after another. Somewhere beyond the archive doors, alarms began to howl.

Beckett swore and nearly collapsed against a shelf. “That,” he rasped, looking down at the blood soaking his trouser leg, “is not a promising sound.”

Nora barely heard him.

She was staring at the ring lying on the floor between her boots.

The contract ring had fallen from her finger when Elias’s recording ended. Its silver band had split down the middle, the tiny runes carved into it glowing like dying embers. She could still feel the shape of it against her skin. The pressure. The heat. Kane’s pulse echoing through the bond whenever he stood too close.

A marriage made from debt.

A promise built on a lie.

She had thought the worst thing Kane could do was use her family name to escape the execution bureau.