Chapter 17: Hear It

I didn't wake Bram.

I got up, pulled on his flannel shirt and my own boots, and checked that Rory was asleep in the healer's arms.

Then I walked down to the bridge in the dark, because the hook in my chest would not let me do anything else.

Cormac was at the Ironwood end.

He had come as far as the stones and stopped, the way he had every dawn since the door.

He looked like he hadn't slept in a week.

There were shadows under his eyes, and his hands were buried in his pockets.

"You felt it," he said.

"I felt you pull."

"I didn't mean to." He shook his head. "I couldn't sleep.

I kept thinking you were two miles away and I couldn't walk down the road."

"You can't."

"I know."

I stopped at the middle of the bridge, with the river running black under the planks.

Neither of us tried to cross.

The thread between us hummed.

It was no longer a rope or a death.

It was just a line that ran to a man I didn't know.

"I'm not going to lie to you," he said. "Your rule. So I'll tell you first.

Kai's phone has been gone since the night they buried the box."

I said nothing.

"I know it was you. I knew when you stood on that bridge.

Nobody else was in my study that night.

Nobody else could have taken it from my hand without waking me."

"I was careful."

"You were."

"You have it."

"I do."

He took a breath, and it shook.

"Is there something on it?"

"There's a message."

"From him."

"Yes."

His face broke open.

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