Chapter 19 · The Blood in the Engine

"You'll stand beside me, Mara. And when the council calls you a traitor, you won't run." Cassian caught my wrist before I could reach the bronze hearing doors.

His fingers closed over my tide mark.

Heat shot up my arm.

Not pain. Worse.

The bond knew him. My body remembered the man who'd rejected me in front of half the harbor, even while every ugly memory screamed at me to get away.

I yanked against his grip. "You rejected me in front of half the city. Now you want me at your side like some loyal little witness?"

"I want you alive."

"Try sounding less disappointed about it."

His jaw tightened.

Behind him, council guards waited with hooked blades and sealed orders. Every one of them had the legal right to drag me into the lower cells.

Cassian had signed those orders himself.

One word from him could protect me.

One word could hand me over.

He stepped closer. Cold air leaked through the cracks in the doors, but his breath brushed my cheek, warm enough to make my skin prickle.

"If you walk in there alone, Evelyn will brand you as the source of the flood.