Page 7 of Zenith Tower

“You shouldn’t be this warm.”

“I’ve always run hot.”

“Kieran.”

“I know.” The joke left his face. “I know, Astra.”

Hale handed me the cup. Kieran drank when I held it to his mouth, though only enough to keep either of us from arguing.

“Was he this warm when the reader saw him?” I asked.

“No. The fever came after. She documented the change in color and the spread across his shoulder, then said intervention required panel authorization.”

“So they’re waiting.”

His mouth tightened. “Yes.”

I looked down at the basin. Green curled through the water from the cloth, faint as diluted ink. “What are we supposed to do until then?”

“Keep the fever down. Keep him drinking. Wake him if his breathing changes.”

Kieran leaned more heavily into me. “I preferred him when he gave combat instructions.”

Hale wrung out the cloth and laid it across the back of Kieran’s neck. His hands were steady, but he had braced his elbows against his knees to keep them that way.

I thought of those same hands supporting Kieran across the bridge. I thought of my own hands in Caspian’s hair while Hale sat here listening to each breath.

“I should have stayed,” I said.

Kieran’s head turned against my shoulder. “I told you to go.”

Hale dipped the cloth into the basin again. “You can both stop.”

I looked at his uncovered Mark. “Could you hear Caspian and me?”

His hands paused in the water.

Kieran closed his eyes. “Oh, good. We’re discussing it.”

I looked down at the cloudy basin.

Hale squeezed the water from the cloth. “These walls carry sound.”

“I noticed.”

“Then you have your answer.” He folded the cloth once and put it back against Kieran’s neck. “I wasn’t listening to you.”

He had been listening to Kieran breathe. I tightened my hand around the cup.

I adjusted the blanket over him. “I shouldn’t have left.”

Kieran’s eyes remained closed. “Hale was here. I knew I wasn’t alone.”

“That isn’t what I mean.”

“I know. But I told you to go because you looked exhausted, and I didn’t want you sitting here waiting for me to get worse.”

“You did get worse.”