Page 153 of Zenith Tower

Recognition passed over the administrator’s face.

Walkin had taken her confession and placed it inside the conclusion prepared for me.

“Delphine Moreau’s statement is excluded pending competency review,” Walkin said. “The administrator is relieved of post and remanded for investigation. Kieran Marsh is remanded to east containment. Astra Verita will be isolated from all completed bonds pending emergency control proceedings.”

Caspian moved in front of me.

Hale reached Kieran before the stewards closed the gap. Delphine remained behind the rail, her silver hand raised where every member of the panel could see it.

Marrow did not move.

“Steward,” Walkin said.

Marrow looked at the black wax over the control plate. Then at Kieran bent around his shoulder, Delphine’s uncovered Mark, and the administrator standing without her sleeve.

He crossed the room toward me.

“You know what containment means,” I said.

“Yes.”

His hand closed around my upper arm.

The administrator drove the heel of her hand through the black wax and onto the control plate.

The room went dark.

Caspian

Astra’s fear struck through the silver line at my wrist. Somewhere ahead of me, Marrow still had her.

I moved toward her.

The emergency lamps had gone with the rest. I could not see the table, the stewards, or the hand I held in front of my face. The room came to me in fragments instead: Astra’s breath breaking near the panel, Kieran’s chair scraping stone, the mineral smell of the shattered reading glass.

The line tightened with her fear. It was the only direction I trusted.

My shin struck the hearing table. Glass broke somewhere near Kieran’s chair. A steward shouted for the doors to be secured, and another voice answered that the controls were not responding.

I found Astra by touch: wool at her shoulder, loose hair against my knuckles, Marrow’s forearm still braced across her back.

He had not released her.

I drove the heel of my hand into the inside of his elbow.His grip broke. Astra turned out of it, and I pulled her against me before the confusion carried us apart again.

Marrow’s other hand caught the front of my coat. I struck his wrist and felt his grip shift rather than fail. Even blind, he knew exactly how much force to spend. He dragged me close enough that his shoulder drove the air from my chest.

“Move,” I said.

“You first.”

Astra brought her forearm between us and broke the angle of his hold. The line at her wrist flared as she twisted. Marrow released me just as light returned beneath the panel.

“Kieran,” she said.

Kieran’s pain burned through her bond. I could feel only its echo through mine, but it was enough to turn us toward the center of the room.

Emergency lamps came alive beneath the panel table. Low silver light spread across the floor and left every face in shadow.