Dastian spreads his palms and holds the water still. It wants to creep. He pins it to the walls with tight pressure lines. “I’ve got you a pocket for five minutes. Make it count.”
Nyssa sets her palm to the cut I made. Light threads into the groove. Shadow locks it. Death hums under her hand. The ring wakes. It isn’t Tabitha’s geometry. It is hers. The slab takes the imprint.
“Good,” I say. “Again.”
We move to the next stone. I score. She binds. The chamber begins to answer, low and steady. It feels like a room that has been waiting a long time for someone to tell it what it is.
The tug on my skin shifts. He knows we are here. He doesn’t rush. He will not flood into a trap again without testing it. Cowardice masquerading as caution.
“The passage turns,” Dastian says, eyes on the narrow curve to the right. “Pressure’s heavier there.”
“Keep to the wall,” Voren advises. “The dead avoid the centre.”
I dislike any corridor I cannot see the end of. I go first. Nyssa keeps one hand on my shoulder. Voren follows, one palm at the small of her back. Dastian anchors the water and moves after us in sharp steps.
The turn opens into a long throat of stone. At the far end, the dark presses like a closed fist. Old cut lines cross the floor at angles I don’t like. Someone built this to channel force. He is using that.
The cuts in the floor are deliberate. They make shallow channels that cross and converge ahead. I crouch and press two fingers to one. The stone hums faintly. It is primed to carry a surge.
“Keep off the lines,” I say. “Step only where I step.”
Nyssa nods. “Got it.”
I place my feet on the bare patches between the cuts and move us forward in short, exact steps. Voren’s breath is even behind her. Dastian’s pressure holds steady, tight at my back.
The tunnel widens into a circular chamber. The ceiling dips. Old stone blocks ring the space, many with cuts scored into them in patterns that match the floor. The far wall shows a black seam. That is his door.
“He’s behind that,” I say.
Nyssa studies the ring of blocks. “We need this whole room to answer me.”
“I’ll give you the map,” I reply. I draw shadow thin and hard and score a clean line along the base of the first ring of blocks. The stone takes it. Nyssa sets her palm to it. Light threads in. Shadow locks. Death hums through the old work. The block wakes to her.
“Next,” she says.
We move around the circle. I cut. She binds. With each block, the tone deepens. The chamber starts to hold a single note. Dastian keeps the water pinned to the walls and ceiling. He doesn’t speak; the strain runs along his forearms in bright bands.
Voren’s eyes are unfocused. “Drowned at the seam. Sailors. Two divers. A monk. Old. New. He has been feeding here for a long time.”
“So that’s what he’s been doing,” I mutter. “It makes a sick kind of sense. He has been fed, but the worlds remain intact.”
“Playing the long game,” Dastian says. “I really want to kick his arse.”
“We will,” Nyssa says. “I promise to give you something to hit.”
“I fucking love you,” he says with a manic grin.
“I fucking love you,” she replies, and then her gaze lands on me. “All of you.”
I nod. This isn’t the time, but she knows how I feel.
“When I open the gate,” Nyssa says to Voren, “you rip them free.”
“Yes,” he answers.
I finish the ring. The chamber hums, steady and ready. I draw a tight circle on the floor in front of the black seam and stand up. “Door.”
Nyssa steps into the circle. She presses her palm to the cut. The floor answers her with a clean pulse. She looks at me. “Hold the ring. If he tries the walls, pin them.”
