Harper
The hallway lights pressed down on us like the last quiet thing we'd get all day.
I flexed my hand once. Aton's stabilizer was already moving through my blood. I could feel it. A cool clarity pressing outward from the vein. The count had started.
I turned and grabbed Vane's hand. Hard. Harder than I meant to.
Wait for me out here. We didn't need words for it.
He didn't let go right away.
He bent. His forehead grazed my hair, then his mouth touched the spot just above my eyebrow, slow. The kiss landed like a stamp.
"Anything," he said, voice down at the bottom of his register. "Anything at all. You push on the bond, I'm through that door."
"I know."
I pressed the warmth of it into my chest and laid it flat over the other thing waking up in there. The second thread. Already h
