Chapter 32 · The Second Heart

"Get away from the core, Nora." Elias caught her wrist before she could touch the black glass. "If you wake it, Grayharbor dies with it."

"Let go."

His grip tightened. Heat snapped through the bond between them, sharp enough to steal her breath. His skin was cold. Too cold. The blue lines under his throat had faded to thin, trembling threads, and his knees were already starting to give.

Nora shoved her shoulder into his chest. "You can barely stand. You don't get to give orders."

"I don't need to stand." He dragged her back from the core. "I need you to stop trying to save a machine that has been eating your brother alive."

The chamber shook.

Black glass climbed from the floor in a crooked ring, each slab pulsing with stolen light. Faces flashed inside it—children, old men, women Nora had seen on missing-person posters. Their mouths moved without sound.

Finn was in there somewhere.

She yanked against Elias's hand. "You said you could find him."

"I found him."

"Then get him out."

"That's not how this works."

"Funny. You always have an answer when the answer is me giving up."

His jaw locked.