Chapter 19 · The Seal Doesn't Lie

"Get away from that door, Evelyn." Cade caught my wrist before my fingers touched the latch.

I twisted hard. His grip tightened.

"Take your hand off me."

"Not until you tell me why the court just sent three execution squads into a sealed vault."

"Because they finally noticed we stopped obeying. Congratulations."

The underground clock vault shook around us. Dust dropped from the stone ceiling. Somewhere beyond the iron door, boots hammered down the passage.

Cade shoved me back against the wall. His body blocked the exit, close enough that his coat brushed my knees. One hand stayed locked around my wrist. The other held his pistol against the door.

"You have thirty seconds," he said. "Then they come through that door, and they take you alive."

"They won't take me alive. They need my memory intact."

"That supposed to make me feel better?"

"You don't get to feel anything. You're the officer who dragged me here."

His jaw flexed. The black ring around our joined wrists pulsed once, hot against my skin.

Cade looked down at it. "The ring's reacting to the order."

"The ring reacts when you lie."

"Then ask it something useful."

I raised my chin.