Page 58 of Pocket Wife

The officers obey because the whole sector is watching them obey.

When the transports lift, flour swirls through the square in pale clouds.

I look at Celia’s bloodied sleeve, Lucy’s pale anger, the bakery torn open like a warning, and the scanner Helix managed to use before losing the room.

Helix has crossed another line.

So have I.

Because when I look at Lucy now, fear no longer asks me to step back.

It asks what I’m willing to risk if they touch her next.

I close my hand around the sealed tin tube.

“We find First Hall,” I say.

Lucy turns to me, flour on her cheek and fury in her eyes.

“Yes,” she says. “Tonight.”

CHAPTER 23

LUCY

Celia won’t leave the oven.

The bakery has emptied of Helix uniforms, but not of damage. Flour coats the floor in pale drifts. Broken glass glitters beneath the front windows. The proofing shelves lie on their sides, trays crushed flat where armored boots stepped through the morning’s work.

Celia stands in front of the brick oven with one hand pressed against the loosened hearth tile, as if she could hold the whole place together by touching the spot where her grandmother hid a key.

I come in quietly.

Rethan stays near the doorway with Jessa and two council witnesses, recording the room without crowding it. He has learned when not to step forward. That matters more to me than I want to admit.

Celia doesn’t turn. “I told my grandmother that tile was ugly.”

I stop beside her. “What?”

“When I was seven. I said it did not match the others.” Celia gives a thin laugh. “She said ugly things are safest because no thief believes they are loved.”

I study the blackened tile. “She was right.”

“She usually was.”

The older woman’s sleeve has been bandaged, but a red stain has already begun to bloom through the cloth. I notice. Celia notices me noticing and lifts her chin.

“Do not start fussing.”

“I was not.”

“You were forming the intention.”

I almost smile.

Then I see Celia’s hands. Flour has settled into the wrinkles. Her fingers shake whenever they’re not pressed to something solid.

Guilt moves through me, sharp and useless. “This happened because we used your ledger.”