Page 137 of Zenith Tower

“I did.”

“Was it Delphine?”

“I couldn’t tell.”

A reader pointed me toward the chair opposite him. “Sit. Both hands visible.”

I sat.

The room had been built for paired examinations. A stone table divided the chairs, with a silver channel running through its center. Water moved beneath a sheet of glass set into the tabletop. There were no restraints, but iron rings had been fixed beneath both seats.

Kieran had noticed them too. His right boot rested over the nearest one.

The reader opened his case and removed two glass probes. “State the first sensation you experienced.”

“Pain,” Kieran said.

“Location.”

“Everywhere you keep asking about.”

The reader waited.

Kieran exhaled through his nose. “The restored fracture. Then my wrist and hand.”

The probe touched the green-gold line near his pulse. Light climbed the glass.

“Duration?”

“I didn’t have a clock.”

“Estimate.”

“Long enough to know it wasn’t mine.”

The reader recorded that and turned to me.

“The line burned from the wrist to the shoulder,” I said. “My hand locked briefly. Astra was in pain.”

“You cannot know whose pain you felt.”

“Then your question has no purpose.”

He placed the second probe against my Mark. Copper light rose inside it and held.

Astra’s exhaustion remained at the far end of the bond. Beneath it, the strange resistance was gone.

“Both lines remain elevated,” the reader said to the steward behind him. “The Ashford bond will require comparison.”

The steward left.

The reader moved the probe higher along my forearm. The glass passed over the edge of the burn left by Marrow’s severance attempt. My fingers tightened against the chair.

“Did the pain increase when contact with the external Mark ended?”

“You know there was an external Mark?” Kieran asked.

The reader glanced at him. “The infirmary reported an unauthorized alteration.”