Silence.
Venn and Sira are very carefully not looking at us. Smart.
"I can feel where she is." The words scrape out. "Constantly. Direction, distance—I know exactly how many blocks, exactly which building. I can't turn it off."
Renan's expression doesn't change, but something shifts behind his eyes. Processing. Recalculating.
"Feel where she is," he repeats.
"There's this pressure." I press my fist against my sternum. Useless gesture. The pressure doesn't care. "Here. Pulling north. Every second. I've tried ignoring it, I've tried focusing on something else—it doesn't matter. She's there and I know she's there and I can't stop knowing."
"Huh."
"Don't."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to say huh again. With implications."
"The implications are free. I provide them as a service."
I turn back to the maps. Arkenhold's layout, marked with every entrance to Coin's territory I've catalogued over the years. Service tunnels. Drainage access. The old wine cellar that connects to the catacombs beneath the merchant district.
Seven blocks. I trace the route with my finger. Then another. Then a third.
"You're planning something," Renan says quietly.
"I'm always planning something."
"More violent than usual."
The pull shifts. Sharpens.
My hand stops on the map.
Something's wrong.
I don't know how I—no, I do know. Something in the quality of it, the pressure beneath my ribs going from constant to urgent, from dull ache to—
My throat closes.
Can't breathe. Can't—there's nothing there, my hand goes to my neck and there's nothing fucking there but I can't get air, can't—
Someone has their hand on her throat.
I know it the way I know my own name. Phantom fingers digging into my windpipe, pressure building, and underneath the panic there's another heartbeat drumming against mine. Fast. Terrified. Skipping wrong.
"Koshin." Renan's voice, somewhere far away. "What—"
I jerk sideways. My hip hits the table. Something crashes—glass shattering—but I can barely hear it through the roaring and the pressure that won't stop. She can't breathe. I can feel her pulse struggling against the grip.
He's lifting her. Whoever it is. Her feet leaving the ground—I feel the weight shift, gravity pulling at a body that isn't mine.
"Let go." The words come out of my mouth. Ragged. Stupid—she can't hear me, no one can hear me, but I'm saying it anyway. "Let her go, let her—"
The pressure builds. My vision goes dark at the edges.
Iowyn. Hold on. Just—
