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“Nope,” I hiss. “Theological debate over.”

I drive the scanner pulse through the collar’s maintenance channel and cut the remote trigger.

The collar shrieks.

Sira jerks forward, and the containment field flares white around her.

Ghar shouts my name.

Brakk slams his palm against the console. “Now or never, kid!”

I twist the scanner frequency hard enough to burn out the stabilizer spike. Sparks jump across my gloves. Pain lashes through my fingers, but the collar’s second trigger collapses. The containment field flickers. One band dies, then another.

Rolaev ’s projection sharpens. “If you remove her, the lower gallery will enter lockdown.”

“Then we’ll add burglary to the list,” I snap.

The last trigger resists.

I can feel the system trying to route through the archive case. Rolaev ’s people designed this collar specifically for ruin resonance, which means they planned for Sira to become leverage against me from the start. Rage gives my hands new steadiness.

“You built this for her,” I say.

Rolaev ’s expression does not change. “I built many tools for possibilities I hoped to avoid.”

“That’s what monsters say when they want craftsmanship points.”

Brakk barks a laugh from the console. “That one was good.”

I send a final surge through the scanner.

The collar snaps open.

Sira collapses forward into my arms as the containment field dies.

The entire gallery erupts in alarms.

Not the Choir’s alarms.

The ruins’ alarms.

Deep silver light blasts across the chamber floor, turning every wall transparent for one impossible instant. I see levels above us, levels below us, Choir soldiers pivoting in confusion, archive mechanisms opening like eyes, and far below everything, a central dark column pulsing with slow ancient intelligence.

Then the walls solidify again.

A voice in no language I know reverberates through the gallery.

The scanner translates only one word before the display goes black.

LOCKDOWN.

Brakk yanks a bundle of wires from the command slab. “That’s our cue to leave!”

Ghar cuts down the last soldier between us and the side exit, then turns toward me. His eyes flick to Sira slumped against my shoulder, to the dead collar in my hand, to the blank scanner, and finally to Rolaev ’s projection.

Rolaev looks at me through the smoke.

Her calm has cracked at the edges.