"You should have stayed in the Fallen City," Owen said, stepping fully inside. "This isn't your fight, outsider."
I held my position. Eyes tracking him. Every micro-shift in his shoulders, the way his bald head caught the low light like wet bone.
"But you're a good guy, Abram." His gaze swept the room — Mary on the floor, Becky slumped on the sofa — before settling back on me. "I'm here to remove someone. For the peace of the walls."
I remembered him putting Speed down. The discharge I had first thought was an accident and had later learned to read very differently.
"And Speed?" I said. "Oddo? The whole mission? That all for the peace of the walls too?"
He smiled. The same mild, almost friendly smile he had worn through everything.
"I've done things I'm not proud of," he said. "Killing Mary Stam isn't one of them."
"She's not dying today," I said.
