Page 76 of Zenith Tower

The open line carried her nearer. I felt her at its far end, distinct from the completed bonds that already lived beside her pulse. She did not pull. She held her place and let me feel that she was there.

“I’m not asking because of Delphine,” she said. “Or Kieran. I want the bond. With you.”

I put my hand over hers. “I’m afraid of what they’ll do after it closes.”

“So am I.”

She did not take her hand away. I turned my wrist beneath it. “I choose it.”

Her fingers tightened around mine. “So do I.”

I released the suppression.

Copper light poured through the channels of my Mark, brightening every place her hand covered. Astra gasped. The matching line at her wrist deepened from rain-dark to burnt copper and began to extend.

The threshold opened between us. Two settled bonds lay at Astra’s wrist, and beside them an open place answered mine. She held at the far edge, leaving the final distance to me.

I brought my wrist against hers.

Copper light spilled through the narrow opening beside the door. A shadow crossed it.

The door struck the wall.

Astra jerked in my arms. Our wrists separated, and the threshold vanished beneath the shock of boots entering the room.

The steward from the end of the corridor stood in the doorway, his attention fixed on the copper light still moving beneath my skin.

“Step away from her,” the steward said.

I stood and put Astra behind me.

“You were not invited in.”

He called for a reader. Boots answered from the cross-corridor, and two more stewards arrived with her.

“Both of you are ordered to joint review,” the reader said.

Astra caught my hand. The unfinished line burned hot enough to hurt between our palms.

“Now?” she asked.

The reader looked from my wrist to hers. “Immediately.”

One steward entered while the others kept the doorway. I could put him down before he took another step. I could not do the same to all three without giving the Tower the violence it wanted to record, and Astra knew it.

Her fingers tightened once around mine before she let go.

They placed her between two stewards. I followed close enough that the man behind me kept reaching toward his belt.

Caspian and Kieran were brought from the opposite corridor. Caspian took in Astra’s flushed mouth, my open cuff, and the copper light neither of us had managed to hide.Kieran looked from our wrists to my face, his expression suddenly serious.

Caspian’s eyes met mine. He gave one small nod.

The reader led us down one level instead of toward the panel chamber. The unfinished line cooled with every locked door, but it did not retreat to the shape it had held before Astra entered my room.

It stayed warm all the way down the stairs.

Astra