Chapter 12 · The Brother Under the Tower

"Where's the tower?"

Nia didn't wait for Rafe to answer. The bone key sat in her palm like a live coal—not hot, just *wrong*. She held it up to the streetlight outside her shop window. The thing swallowed the glow whole. Didn't reflect. Just ate the light like it was starving.

Rafe stood three feet back, blood still wet on his knuckles from the climb. He wasn't looking at the key. He was looking at her.

Waiting.

Waiting for her to say something about the fact that he'd just admitted he was the reason Jonah never made it out eight years ago.

She should've thrown him out. Should've screamed. But all she could hear was Jonah's voice on that recording, crackling through the static: *Don't let her take you to the tower.*

"Where is it?" she said again.

Rafe's jaw tightened. "You don't want to go there."

"I didn't ask if I wanted to. I asked where."

"Nia—"

"He's alive." She said it flat, because if she put any weight behind it, she'd crack wide open. "You said he didn't die. So where is he?"

Rafe dragged a hand through his hair.