Page 98 of Zenith Tower

The hidden door shook in its frame.

“Go,” she said.

The residential corridor was empty. Every room door hadbeen pulled shut, though no one had yet turned the external locks. We had beaten the order by minutes.

Caspian and I took Kieran between us. Hale followed close behind, one hand closed around his injured forearm. The copper light escaped between his fingers.

Boots entered the far junction as we reached Kieran’s room. We got him inside before the stewards reached us.

The administrator met them with the rescission order held open in both hands.

“He requires examination,” one steward said.

“He has just been removed from an unauthorized isolation cell in a drugged state,” she replied. “No one touches him until the healer arrives.”

Her rank stopped them at the threshold. It did not make them leave.

Inside, Caspian lowered Kieran onto the bed. I pulled the blanket higher around him and reached for the water pitcher.

Kieran caught my wrist.

“Hale,” he said.

I looked toward the door.

He was gone.

Hale’s line at my wrist burned toward the corridor.

Caspian took the cup from my hand. “Go.”

“The healer??—”

“Will have to fight me for him.”

Kieran’s fingers loosened around my wrist. “He came back for me. Return the favor.”

I left them together.

Hale had made it as far as his room. The door stood open, and copper light stretched across the threshold.

I found him beside the bed with both hands braced against the stone wall. His coat lay where he had dropped it. Light moved over his forearms in branching channels, filling the dark curves of his Mark until the whole pattern showed through the linen of his shirt.

His breathing was too controlled. Each breath stopped before it reached the bottom of his lungs.

I closed the door.

“Jonah.”

“I can’t put it back.”

“Do you want to?”

He turned his head. Sweat shone at his temple, and the strain around his mouth belonged to a man holding a weight long after his muscles had begun to fail.

“No,” he said. “That is what frightens me.”

I crossed the room slowly. Bitterleaf clung to his shirt beneath the sharper trace of sweat. His knuckles had gone pale against the wall.