Page 156 of Zenith Tower

Her grief came through the bond so sharply that it caught beneath my ribs. I understood it. I kept my hand there.

“You gave her a choice,” I said. “She made it.”

I had followed Astra east when I wanted the service door. I could not drag the administrator from the choice she had made.

Astra crossed the space between us and caught my hand.

The west door was nearly shut. Hale held it with his shoulder while Kieran leaned against the wall beside him. Delphine had already slipped through.

A steward seized Astra from behind.

Copper light flared.

Hale left the door.

It began to swing closed as he crossed the chamber. He caught the steward’s wrist, stripped the hand from Astra’s shoulder, and turned the man into the path of another baton. Wood struck the steward’s back. Both men went down against the benches.

Hale drove himself upright and ran back. The gap had narrowed to the width of his shoulders by the time he reached it. He turned sideways and forced himself between the stone and the frame.

I caught Astra around the waist and pulled her after him. Her breath struck the side of my throat. The line at my wrist pulsed hard enough to numb my fingers where they held her.

Walkin reached the control plate.

The black wax had broken beneath the administrator’s hand, but its fragments still clung to the stone around her fingers. Walkin closed their hand over her wrist.

“Seal the west level,” they ordered.

The door jerked against Hale’s shoulder.

Kieran caught its edge with his left hand. Delphine reached back from the corridor. I pushed Astra through first, then followed with Hale beside me.

The stone door struck my coat and tore the hem before we cleared it.

Kieran let go.

The door slammed between us and the hearing room.

The force threw Kieran against Hale. His injured shoulder struck Hale’s chest, and green-gold flared at Astra’s wrist ashis pain crossed the bond. Hale took the impact without loosening his hold.

“Still with me?” he asked.

Kieran tried to straighten. “Regrettably.”

“Good.”

The impact shook grit from the arch. For a moment, the corridor held only our breathing, stone dust settling through the silver light, and the alarm beginning somewhere overhead.

Delphine opened her coat enough to show the folded hearing pages and Kieran’s folio remained inside.

Hale put Kieran’s left arm across his shoulders. Kieran’s face had gone pale, but his line at Astra’s wrist held steady.

Astra pressed her palm to the closed door.

No sound came through the stone.

The map beneath Astra’s coat ended at this level. From here, the route depended on the service turns I had learned at the dock, and Marrow was already below us closing them.

“We have to move,” I said.