That made the word feel less like a title and more like a thing people had protected with their teeth.
Hale crossed the salle and took another stave from the rack.
His sleeve stayed pushed back.
“My uncle bonded against Council order,” he said.
“With a Star-Marked woman?”
His fingers flexed around the stave.
“Yes.”
“And the Council killed them?”
Hale’s eyes lifted to mine.
“The Council recorded an intervention.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“No,” he said. “It wasn’t. But that’s the official answer.”
The notebook pressed against my ribs.
Korey Dorian, dead before he could finish asking.
Cosima, fourteen and praised for being frightened.
Hale’s uncle, turned into a warning.
My mother’s brooch, cold over my heart.
Dead people who shared one thing in common.
“So your family sent you here for revenge.”
“For proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That a Hale could face the same Pull and survive it.”
I stared at him.
“Me.”
“The answer. The Mark. The thing the Council used to kill my uncle.”
“I’m not a weapon they left lying around for your family to test itself against.”
“No. As it turns out, you are not.”
He looked down at his uncovered Mark.
“That was the first thing I got wrong.”
The anger in my chest changed shape.
