The fabric strained under my fingers, smelling of damp earth and stale sweat.

“The coordinates,” I said, my voice barely a whisper above the scraping outside. “Who has them?”

Caleb swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing against my knuckles.

He looked past me, his eyes darting toward the dark corner where Nora sat.

Nora did not look away; her face was pale, but her dark eyes were cold and steady.

“Tell him, Caleb,” Nora said, her voice thin but sharp.

Caleb closed his eyes for a brief second, his chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow breaths.

“I had no choice, Adrian,” Caleb said.

“Everyone has a choice,” I said. “You had seventeen years of them.”

“They were going to take everything anyway,” he muttered, his voice cracking. “The empire is crumbling. You’re too blind to see it.”

I tightened my grip on his collar, pulling him upward until his toes barely touched the stone floor.

“Who did you sell them to?” I demanded.

“The syndicate,” Caleb choked out. “The Morozov group.”

The name hung in the damp air of the cellar, heavy and cold.