Page 40 of Zenith Tower

Marrow looked at him. “It was the reason I refused the order.”

Delphine lowered herself to the bed. “No one told me.”

“They were not going to.”

I crouched beside her, keeping hold of her hand. “Why did you care where they meant to take her?”

Marrow sent the guards back to the checkpoint. He waited until their steps had receded before he answered.

“Because Delphine was not the first resident I saw removed that way,” he said.

I knew the name before he spoke it.

“Sadie Corwin.”

Delphine went rigid beside me.

Marrow’s expression did not change. “I was assigned to her when she arrived at the Tower. She was seventeen. Her reading at the Hall had been recorded as unstable.”

“She was kept in Wing C?”

“For several months. Then a transfer order arrived. I was told to prepare her before dawn.”

“Prepare her for what?”

“I asked. No one answered.”

The image came too easily: Sadie in this room, a ration bowl beneath the hatch, waiting through the night while stewards discussed her somewhere beyond the door.

“Did you see where they took her?”

“No. I was removed from the corridor before the escort arrived. Her file closed the following morning.”

“But you let them take her.”

Marrow straightened. “I made two formal requests for the destination and the resolution. After the second, I was told that another would end my employment and place my own record under review.”

Caspian watched him. “What did you do instead?”

“I searched every transfer record I could access. Her name never appeared. Neither did the names of the escort or the receiving facility.”

He had blocked Delphine’s transfer. That did not change the cell around us or the Mark she kept covered beneath her hand.

“Is that why you stayed at the Tower?” I asked.

“I thought I could prevent it from happening again.”

Delphine looked down at her wrist. “You didn’t.”

Marrow took the words without looking away. “No.”

I looked at Delphine. She did not look away from him.

“Keeping her in this room isn’t enough,” I said.

“I am aware of that.”

“Then get her out of it.”