Page 158 of Zenith Tower

Caspian’s fingers tightened around mine. “Walkin pinned Kieran in that frame and kept tightening it after he refused.”

“I was there.”

“Then don’t pretend this is procedure.”

Marrow looked past him to the bonds at my wrist. “Move away from her.”

Caspian stepped in front of me. “No.”

Hale eased Kieran toward Delphine. “Stay behind us.”

Kieran drew himself upright. His face had gone gray beneath the water-light. “I can still stand.”

Hale looked once at his shoulder, then positioned himself where he could intercept anyone who reached Kieran’s injured side.

Marrow lifted one hand.

The stewards advanced.

The walkway gave us no room to separate. Hale took the left side with Kieran close behind him. Caspian moved right. Delphine drew the folded hearing pages from her coat andpushed them into the back of my waistband beneath my shirt.

“If we’re separated, those pages leave with you.”

“Delphine—” The first baton reached us before I could finish.

Caspian turned sideways beneath the swing and struck the steward across the mouth. The man staggered, recovered, and drove the baton back toward my head.

Caspian stepped between us.

Wood cracked across his ribs.

The crack carried over the channels.

Caspian’s line clenched at my wrist, and a hollow pressure closed beneath my own ribs. My next breath failed with his.

He folded around the blow but caught the steward’s wrist before it could rise again. He drove the man into the wall with his shoulder, once, hard enough to loosen the baton, then struck behind the knee. The steward went down.

Caspian stayed bent, one arm clamped across his side.

I caught his coat. “Can you breathe?”

“Enough.” The word came thin. “Don’t let them put you against the water.”

On the other side of the walkway, Hale blocked one baton with his forearm and drove his fist beneath the steward’s ribs. Kieran caught the man’s coat with his good hand and pulled him off balance. Hale finished the turn and sent him down between them.

A second steward came around their left side.

Delphine stepped into his path.

He checked himself rather than strike her. The hesitation lasted less than a second, but she used it. She caught the front of his uniform and drove her heel into his shin. His boot slid on the wet edge of the walkway.

He went into the channel shoulder-first.

The current carried him several yards before he caught a metal rung below the walkway. It dragged the rest of himdownstream while he clung there. Every attempt at breath ended in coughing, lost beneath the water.

Marrow came through the center.

Hale met him before he reached me. Marrow caught Hale’s first strike against his forearm, turned inside the second, and drove him backward into the wall. The rain-dark line burst hot along my wrist.