Page 9 of Zenith Tower

I kept my arm around Kieran.

None of us returned to our own rooms.

Jonah

Kieran slept badly. Every few minutes his breathing caught and started again. Astra sat against the headboard with his weight resting into her side, one arm still around him beneath the blanket. She had fallen asleep sometime after Marrow left, though her hand remained closed around Kieran’s wrist.

Caspian sat on the floor at the foot of the bed. His head rested against the frame, eyes shut, but I knew he was awake. Each time Kieran shifted, Caspian’s attention moved toward him before the sound had finished.

I stayed in the chair.

The fresh water in the washbowl had begun to cloud. Green gathered along the folds of the cloth at Kieran’s neck, dim in the low light. I changed it again and checked his pulse.

Faster.

His fever had climbed too. The Tower had given us broth, water, and a cord to pull if he worsened. It had not given us anyone willing to treat him.

Caspian opened his eyes. “How bad?”

“Worse than when Marrow was here.”

He pushed himself up and looked toward the black cord beside the door. I was already crossing the room.

The cord went slack when I pulled it. No bell sounded, and nothing moved inside the wall.

We waited. The corridor remained empty.

Caspian took the cup from the table and held it out to me. I drank because arguing would waste time. The water tasted faintly of stone and whatever metal lined the pipes inside the walls.

“Did the reader say why intervention required the panel?”

“No. She asked whether the Mark had changed. She never asked what the change was doing to him.”

“They asked me about the cuffs.”

“They asked Astra about the third line.”

His gaze moved to her sleeping against the headboard. A strand of hair had fallen across her face. He moved it carefully away, and I drew the blanket higher over her shoulder.

My sleeve was still rolled above my elbow, leaving the Mark visible. The transfer order Linden had read before they took us underground forbade suppression until Tower review, and without the pressure I had kept against it since childhood, the lines lay darker along my forearm than I was accustomed to seeing them.

Astra’s rain-dark line lay hidden beneath her sleeve. I could feel its direction without seeing it. The Pull had sharpened when she entered Kieran’s room, quiet beneath the more immediate work of keeping him conscious, cooling the fever, and making sure every breath was followed by another.

I did not force it down.

Kieran stirred.

His hand jerked in Astra’s grip, and his shoulder drew tight under the open collar of his shirt. Silver-green light spread beneath the fabric, following the line of his Mark. His breath stopped halfway in.

I was out of the chair before Caspian could move.

“Kieran.” I put one hand against his chest. “Breathe.”

His eyes opened without focusing. He released the breath in a thin rush but could not draw the next one.

Astra woke at once. “What’s happening?”

“Sit him forward.”