I hand Kavor the map, the proof labels tucked inside. “Get this to Rosalind if I don’t come out.”
His face goes still. Terrible still.
“No.”
My chest hurts. I step closer so only he can hear.
“Not a command-shaped no. Not now. If I get trapped, this matters more than me,” I whisper.
“No.”
“Kavor.”
“No.”
The red is there. So is fear. Real fear. Mine, reflected back in scales and flame-dark eyes. I want to touch his face. I don’t. If I touch him, I might choose him over the room. I’m not ready to know whether I could.
“The City needs proof,” I say.
“I need you alive.”
The words hit harder because I said them first. A cruel echo.
“I know.”
That hurts him, and I see it, but there is no time. I turn away before my face betrays me.
The west stair entrance groans open at the far end, stone grinding against stone. Penr did it. Good boy. Terrified boy. Useful boy.
People surge. Too fast.
“Slow!” I shout.
The floor gives a warning pop beneath the center of the room.
They don’t slow down. Of course they don’t. I run for the crack. Kavor curses behind me. Zmaj words. Deep and furious.
I drop to my knees at the edge of the expanding fissure and slam my good palm against the white-gray line.
Cold rips up my arm. The bandage flares. The sample on Kavor’s chest flares behind me.
The floor pauses. Doesn’t stop. Only pauses.
I feel the channel then. The wrong rhythm moves through old stone like a pulse looking for a heart.
It knows me. No. It knows my blood. The epis. The unfinished bond.
It reaches. My vision goes blue-white. For one impossible second, I see the room from below. People moving like sparks over thin stone. Kavor like a dark star at my back. The proof bundles burning small and blue against his chest.
The zemlja turns beneath the lower district. And under everything, the network opens its eye. I understand the floor. Enough, I think.
“Left side!” I scream. “Stay left!”
The westbound crowd shifts just as the right side of the chamber drops. Stone collapses inward, taking empty floor instead of bodies.
Good. Good. Then the crack races beneath me.
Kavor reaches me at the same moment. His hand catches the back of my vest. The floor disappears. For half a breath, I hang between his grip and the dark.
