Chapter 24: Paid in Full

On Monday morning Hollis drove me to the capital's technical university himself, in a Command truck with the crest on the door.

Teague rode in the back seat with a paper bag of pastries and a speech.

"I've written it down," he said. "It's called Ten Things To Know About Your Wife's First Day."

"I'm not his wife," I said. "I'm his mate."

"It's the same speech."

"It isn't."

"Number one," Teague said, "do not fix the building."

Hollis laughed so hard that he missed the turn.

"The Crown read the sentences on Friday," he said when he had the wheel back.

"I know. I was there."

"I wanted to say it in the truck, where you can leave." He glanced at me. "Hedda gets ten years in a Crown house, and the tonic recipe is burned."

"And my father?"

"Ten years' wages to the healers' fund, scrubbing the Keep's truck bays under guard."

"With a wrench?"

"With a very small brush," Teague said from the back, and handed me a pastry.

The university gates were tall and black, with a crowd of students pouring through them in coats and scarves.

Most of them were eighteen.

I was twenty-two, and I had grease permanently in the lines of my knuckles.

Hollis pulled up at the curb and turned off the engine.

He didn't open his door.

"I'll wait here," he said.

"You can come in."

"I could." He looked at the gate, and then at me. "It's your gate. Walk through it."

I looked at the mark on his wrist.

It was glowing softly, steadily, and the mark on my shoulder warmed in answer.

"Kiss me," I said.

"Here?"

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