Caspian stood.
The wall gave us nothing back.
“He’s hurting,” I said.
“I felt him.”
“You know what it is.”
Caspian’s hand dropped to his side.
“I know it is more than the bond,” he said. “And I know you may be the only person who can stop it.”
My next breath came thin.
“Then tell me.”
“It is not mine to tell.”
“Everyone keeps saying that before they decide what I am allowed to know.”
“This isn’t that.”
“It sounds exactly like that.”
“He is dying, Astra. That is what I know. The rest belongs to him.”
For a moment, I didn’t understand the sentence.
Then I did, and the wall between us and Kieran seemed suddenly crueler than the lock.
He’d known he was dying.
Kieran had known, and he had kissed me on the clock tower with death in his Mark and jokes in his mouth, and he had refused to let me see what the jokes were hiding.
My hand went to my wrist.
The green-gold line pulled hard enough to make my eyes sting.
Another sound came through the wall. Quieter. A voice, maybe. Kieran’s or Hale’s. Then nothing.
Caspian lowered his hand.
“They separated them from you because they think distance will make the other lines easier to cut,” he said, softer now.
“And they left you with me because?”
He looked toward the locked door.
“Because I am the official line.”
“Caspian Ashford,” I said. “Official answer. Acceptable bond. Convenient exit strategy.”
He nodded.
“That should make me want to push you away.”
“Does it?”
