Page 139 of Zenith Tower

“No,” I said.

“This is a required reading.”

“You asked for the response. You recorded it.”

“Repetition is required to establish control.”

“Whose control?” Kieran asked.

The reader closed his case. “You will remain here until the Council review officer arrives.”

He left with the instruments. The door shut behind him, and the key turned.

Kieran looked at the water moving beneath the glass. “How much do you think they heard?”

“Everything we said.”

“Comforting.”

“They saw the bond values fall. The rest was already in their records.”

He leaned back, though the rigid chair offered no comfort. “Walkin will know Astra touched Delphine before they enterthis room. They’ll want her to do it again under conditions they control.”

Kieran watched the silver water beneath the glass. Its light sharpened the exhaustion around his eyes.

“Delphine asked her,” he said. “Walkin won’t care.”

“They will care because consent makes the result harder to control. They’ll want a second Mark, an instruction they gave, and a change they can measure.”

Kieran rubbed his thumb across his palm. The tremor there had returned, faint but visible.

“And if she refuses, they choose one of us.”

The administrator had already warned us. Hearing Kieran say it made the likely order of choices clearer.

Caspian’s bond was the oldest and most stable. My line had survived one severance attempt. Kieran’s Mark had fractured, failed, and been repaired by Astra’s hands. If Walkin wanted a threat she would believe, they would begin with him.

“They won’t begin by calling it harm,” I said. “They’ll call it a reading and let Astra watch each step become worse.”

Kieran let out a slow breath that held no relief.

“What do we do?” he asked.

I rested my forearms on the table. Speaking quietly would not make the room private, so I kept to what Walkin could already infer.

“Nothing they can call resistance yet.”

Kieran laid his palm over his line, tightened the connection briefly, and released it. The pressure repeated what we had sent together without naming it for anyone listening.

I answered through the bond.

I reached across the table and put my hand over his trembling one. He turned his palm upward and closed his fingers around mine.

“They’ll begin with you,” I said.

His hand went still beneath mine. “Because she repaired me.”

“They may try to reproduce the fracture.”