Chapter 23 · The Witness Below

"Why?"

"Because it carries your bloodline."

"Exactly."

I dragged my blade across my palm.

Pain burst white. Blood spilled over the metal disk and sank into the Hart crest. The seal heated beneath my hand, burning straight through my skin.

Kane caught my wrist. "Stop."

"You should've stopped my father."

I slammed the disk against the open ledger.

The crest split.

A shockwave threw Kane into the iron frame. Metal shrieked. The breach tore open, and broken memories poured through it.

My father's office.

A locked staircase.

Mara crying into a phone.

A man's ring turning beside a stack of disaster reports.

Then my father appeared in the red haze.

Not a ghost. A recording.

His face looked gray. Sweat darkened his collar, and his eyes kept darting toward something offscreen.

"Evelyn, if you're seeing this, you've cut yourself loose from my seal. Good. Don't trust the Bureau. Don't trust the council. Find the witness before they move her again. She remembers who opened the first gate."

The image stuttered.

I stepped closer. "Who? Who opened it?"

Kane shoved away from the frame. "The memory's collapsing."

"I need the name."

My father's hand rose in the recording.