Page 151 of Zenith Tower

Walkin nodded to the reader.

The reader fitted the frame over Kieran’s right shoulder. One curved bar rested above the line at his shoulder and another passed beneath his arm, pinning him against the back of the chair.

The first turn of the screw drove him back against thechair. His left hand closed around the edge of the seat. Pain flooded green-gold, carrying the old sensation of a line splitting under pressure.

I pushed to my feet.

Caspian rose with me. Stewards closed around the table before either of us cleared the chairs.

“Stop,” I said.

Walkin lifted one hand. The steward between Kieran and me stepped aside, leaving a clear path to the chair.

Walkin watched my wrist. “You can stop it.”

The reader turned the screw again.

Kieran made no sound. The bond made silence impossible. I felt the frame narrowing the restored channel and the Mark forcing power against it. The healed fracture held, but strain gathered around the scars.

My reach opened through Kieran’s line. With one touch, I could widen the channel and relieve the pressure. I could also give Walkin the controlled response they had arranged the room to produce.

All three lines tightened together.

The signal held.

Stop. Think.

I looked at Kieran.

Sweat had gathered along his hairline. He met my eyes and shook his head once.

“He does not consent,” I said.

“The intervention would relieve his pain.”

“The pain you ordered.”

Walkin rested their hand on the open annex. “Does consent prevent you from altering his Mark?”

The question opened a trap either answer would serve.

“No,” I said. “It prevents me from deciding his body belongs to me.”

Delphine’s repaired hand closed around the witness rail.

“Record that,” she said.

The clerk looked at Walkin, then lowered her pen.

“Consent is an ethical claim, not a limit of capability,” Walkin said.

“You keep separating what I can do from whether I have the right to do it. I won’t.”

“They are separate when the capability can be used without consent.”

The reader’s hand remained on the frame.

“Take it off him,” Hale said.