He was threatening to take Emrys not because he wanted Emrys but because he’d learned, over six years, that threatening what I loved was the fastest way to make me comply.

It had always worked.

It was not going to work again, and some part of him must have heard, in my silence, that the tool had finally broken in his hand, because his voice climbed higher and more desperate as he realized the threats were landing on nothing.

I didn’t answer him with words.

There’s a display panel built into the gate pillar, and I turned it on.

Chapter 10 — Sabelle