Nova
The stairs hurt.
Each step jars my shoulder and by the third turn I’m breathing through my teeth but I’m not stopping. Beckett’s behind me. I can hear him. Feel him there without looking.
The wards are muffled down here but they’re still screaming.
I should care more about that.
I don’t.
The stairs end at a heavy steel door. I stop in front of it and my hand goes to the handle before I decide to.
Beckett’s two steps up. I feel better that he’s here.
“You good?” he says.
“No.”
He doesn’t try to talk me out of it. He just squeezes my good shoulder once and lets go.
“Stay at the stairs,” I say. “If this goes bad I need you to hear it.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Nova. I promise.”
I nod and pull the door open.
The room is smaller than I thought.
Concrete everywhere and a single light overhead that buzzes quietly. A chair bolted to the floor in the center.
Laith is in it.
Wrists, ankles, a strap across his chest. He’s not fighting any of it. Just sitting there like he’s been waiting a long time and he made himself comfortable. His head comes up when I step inside.
He looks like shit.
Good.
His eyes find me.
And he stops.
“You,” he says.
Not a fan of that.
The door swings shut behind me and it’s just us.
I hope Beckett can hear through the door.
Laith is still staring at me like I’m a puzzle. Like each time he blinks he’s expecting me to be something else.
“You’re not supposed to exist,” he says.
It doesn’t sound like an accusation. That’s the thing. It sounds like a fact he’s been carrying. Except here I am, existing.
“Yeah, well.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “Too bad.”
His eyes drop to my wrist. To the mark.
He keeps his face still but I watch his jaw move until his eyes widen just a little.
“It finalized,” he says quietly. Almost to himself. “The bond. It actually—”
The wards get louder for a second. He hears it. Looks at the ceiling. Back at me.
“You should go,” he says. “They’re coming for you.”
“I know.”
“Then what are you doing down here?”
“Getting answers.”
“There’s no time—”
“Yet here we are.”
He glares at me.
“You’re angry.”
“You think?”
“Good.” He settles back against the chair as much as the restraints let him. “Angry is better than afraid.”
I don’t tell him I stopped being afraid a long time ago. It’s not his to know.
“What were you doing to me?” I say. “In the chair.”
He doesn’t pretend not to know what I mean.
“Isolating the variable.”
“Which variable?”
“You.” He says it like it’s the most obvious answer in the room. “That cluster of yours has been together for years. No shift from any of them. Then you arrive and within weeks—” He stops. His jaw tightens fractionally. “I knew what I was seeing. But it couldn’t be. So I needed to be certain.”
“So you strapped me down.”
“Yes.”
“That’s your version of science.”
“Yes.”
I wait for the qualifier. The context. The but you have to understand.
Something. Anything.
It doesn’t come.
“Your clusters aren’t shifting anymore,” I say. “Are they, Laith.”
He goes still.
Won’t meet my eyes.
“How do you know that,” he says.
“I know a lot of things.”
He looks at me like he’s trying to see through me.
“Every generation,” he says finally. “Fewer people can do it. System assigned clusters form and maybe a few shift. Sometimes nothing happens. Bonds finalize with the secondary mark from the System and the shift never comes.”
“How do you… Oh. The Academy.”
I shift my weight trying to make it make sense.
“You’re using the Academy to track shifting.” I step forward. “That’s why no one even knows about shifting before they go.”
“It was necessary.”
“It’s wrong.”
“I was giving them hope.”
“Hope for what?”
“A final mark. A cluster. Something to belong to.”
I think about Zoe the day I first met her at the Academy. About the second mark she has.
My attention moves back to him as he shifts in his chair like he doesn’t want to say whatever he’s about to.
He opens his mouth and closes it again.
I hold my wrist with my other hand. Rub my thumb over my mark.
I don’t know why but…
Oh.
Eli’s mark. Zoe’s mark. I think I might be sick.
“They’re not real.”
“Excuse me?”
I swallow trying to settle myself.
“The system assigned clusters… The second small marks that are supposed to show a finalized bond… None of it’s real. Not a real bond.”
He doesn’t say I’m wrong. Just sits there not meeting my eyes.
“But mine is.”
“Yes.”
My head spins but I will not let this man see me vulnerable ever again.
“We’ve been watching for decades. Waiting.” He looks at the mark on my wrist. “And then someone dumped you on my doorstep.”
The room is very quiet underneath the buzzing of the light.
“And you thought I was the missing piece,” I say.
“A baby without a mark… Removed from the system. Do you realize how rare that is?”
“Yeah.” The word comes out flat. “Pretty sure I lived it.”
He doesn’t deny it.
“What even is it,” I say. “The thing on my wrist. It’s not a House mark.”
“No.”
“So what is it?”
He’s quiet for a moment.
“It predates the Houses,” he says. “It predates the system.”
The wards outside scream louder.
Neither of us looks up.
And I have had enough of his bullshit.
I step forward until I’m right in front of him.
“Then what the fuck is it?”
He swallows and for one second he looks like he might fight me. But then his shoulders sag.
“It’s the mark of the Fourth.”
I blink.
What the hell?
“And you knew what that meant.”
“I suspected,” he says. “What I knew is that it was impossible. When you showed up on my doorstep without a mark something was different.” He looks at me. “And yet…”
“And yet,” I say. “So what did you do.”
“I identified you as an anomaly,” he says. “And I made a decision about how to handle it.”
I hate that fucking word.
“You assigned my parents,” I say. “Celeste and Hunter.”
“Yes.”
“They were Order personnel.”
He nods. “A system bonded pair. Highest clearance. The assignment was straightforward — raise you, keep you close…”
He stops when the door opens behind me.
My body goes rigid.
“Well,” Silas says. “Isn’t this cozy.”
The room fills fast. Silas. Harrick. Three others I don’t recognize, spreading along the walls like they’ve done this before.
Harrick’s eyes find me and he grins.
I look at Laith.
He’s already watching me.
“I told you,” he says, very quietly. “You ran out of time.”