Page 57

Sira looks at the walls instead of the doors. “The chamber is not rotating. Our relationship to the chamber is changing.”

Teren would have made some nervous joke about not being emotionally ready for a room with commitment issues. The thought comes and goes like a blade sliding between ribs, because Teren is not here, and the space his voice should occupy feels louder than any warning alarm.

Anita grips the archive case strap harder. “So either local geometry is shifting around us, or the room is altering our perception of position.”

Brakk points toward the ceiling with the cutter. “I vote for whichever answer lets me punch something.”

I look toward Anita. “Can you read the pattern?”

She kneels despite the tremor in her hands and opens her scanner case just enough for the cracked core to illuminate the chamber floor. Silver light blooms across her gloves and reflects in her green eyes. The sight of her kneeling in the center of that impossible room, grief held back by willpower and curiosity burning through exhaustion, strikes me with such force that I have to look away for half a breath.

The bond notices my weakness and tightens.

I despise that it has so many ways to tell the truth.

Anita studies the scanner readout. “The floor plates are responding to mass and attention.”

Brakk stares at her. “Attention has a weight now?”

“In this room, maybe.” Anita glances up, and some of her old dry bite returns despite everything. “Congratulations, Brakk. Your bad attitude might be structurally relevant.”

Brakk grunts. “My bad attitude has kept me alive through three bankrupt employers, one pirate divorce, and a mining dispute involving weaponized poultry.”

Sira’s gaze shifts faintly. “I know not what weaponized poultry means, but I believe I am grateful.”

I keep my focus on the exits while they speak, because humor is useful, but only if someone remains ready to kill the thing that interrupts it. Somewhere above us, far beyond layers of stone and moving architecture, the Choir continues searching. Their signal has faded in the interference, but their intent remains clear. They will descend until the ruins kill them, or until they find us.

Anita rises too quickly and sways.

I move before thinking, stopping myself just short of touching her. The motion is small, but she sees it. Her eyes flick to my hand, then to my face, and the memory of our argument in the previous chamber returns with uncomfortable precision.

She does not accuse me this time.

“I’m steady,” she says quietly.

I lower my hand. “You are lying.”

“I’m lying constructively.”

“There are better constructions.”

“Not in my field.”

Brakk makes a small gagging sound. “You two are getting less entertaining and more concerning.”

Anita ignores him and turns back to the chamber floor. “The exit we want is not the one we came through. The geometry is trying to align with the archive core, so if we follow the strongest resonance, we should keep descending.”

“That assumes descending is good,” Brakk says.

Anita closes the scanner case carefully. “No, it assumes descending is relevant.”

“Relevant killed Terry.”

Her face tightens.

Brakk immediately looks away, his ears flattening. “Damn it. I didn’t mean it like that.”

Anita inhales through her nose, once, then nods without looking at him. “I know.”