The ancient city was alive, and it was leaving.Kai felt it in the soles of his boots before he understood it with his eyes — a deep, grinding shudder that rolled up through stone that shouldn't have been able to move at all. Massive walls sank into the earth like ships going under. Somewhere beneath the streets, enormous rings of black metal ground against each other, turning, turning, rearranging a civilization that had no business still functioning after however many thousand years.He stood at the mouth of the tunnel where Shen Tian had vanished, and he shouted the old survivor's name into the dark like it might mean something."Shen Tian!"Nothing came back but the mechanical groan of a world unfolding itself.Aria's hand closed around his arm, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. "Don't go deeper.""My master came here." He didn't look at her. He couldn't, not yet — if he looked at her he'd see the fear she was hiding better than most people could, and he needed his anger r

The black vehicle disappeared around the bend, swallowed by dust and distance. Kai stared after it long after the sound of the engine faded, his jaw tight, his mind already racing through the list of people who might want to watch them from a distance and then vanish without a word."Wait here," he said.Aria's hand shot out and caught his wrist before he'd taken a second step. Her grip was stronger than it looked."Kai."He looked back at her, irritation and something softer warring on his face."I need to know who was inside," he said."You're injured.""So are they.""That's not the comfort you think it is."Kai almost laughed despite himself. He glanced past her toward the surviving expedition members, several of them slumped and pale while Victor Hale's medical team moved among them with practiced urgency. If the person in that vehicle was connected to Elias, chasing them alone could expose everyone still standing on this ruined hillside.He let his breath out slowly, the fight d

Kai's grip tightened around the phone until the plastic case creaked.Aria leaned over his shoulder, and he felt her breath catch against his neck. "What happened?"He turned the screen toward her without a word. Two lines of white text on black.STOP LOOKING FOR ELIAS.OR ARIA WILL DISAPPEAR JUST LIKE HE DID.Her face didn't crumble the way he expected. It went still, calculating, dangerous. That stillness scared him more than tears would have."Say something," Kai said."What do you want me to say? That I'm scared?" She lifted her chin. "I'm not giving them the satisfaction."Victor stepped in close enough that Kai could smell the coffee on his breath. "Who sent that?""Unknown number.""Give it to me. I'll trace it.""Already tried," Kai said flatly. "You tried. I have resources you don't." Victor held out his hand, palm up, waiting.Kai didn't move the phone an inch. "Then use them. Now."Something flickered behind Victor's eyes — irritation, maybe insult. "You think I haven't alr

Kai stared at the photograph, and the longer he stared, the less sense it made.Elias. The ancient gate. The faceless woman. And the baby cradled in her arms like something the world hadn't earned yet.His fingers trembled slightly as he turned it toward the light.The child survived too.Four words scrawled on the back, and somehow they weighed more than everything he'd pulled from the ruins combined."Kai?"Aria's voice cut through the fog in his head. He turned the photograph over fast, too fast, and he knew she'd caught the motion before he even opened his mouth."Nothing," he said. She folded her arms. "You're a terrible liar.""I'm just tired.""That's not what tired looks like on you. I've seen tired. This is something else." She took a step closer, close enough that he could see the dirt still smudged along her jaw from the collapse. "After everything that happened down there, you still don't trust me?""That's not it.""Then what is it, Kai?"He looked away, jaw tight. He wan

Kai ran.He didn't bother with the elevator. He took the stairwell three steps at a time, his shoulder clipping the railing on the second landing, his phone crushed against his ear like it might slip away from him if he loosened his grip even slightly."Aria, stay on the line.""I am." Her voice was tight, clipped, the way it got when she was trying not to sound scared and failing."Where are you now?""Near the eastern bridge."His jaw tightened. Of course she was. Of course the one night he wasn't glued to her side, she'd wandered into the worst possible place in the city."That area is crowded.""I know.""Good." He hit the ground floor at a dead sprint, shouldering the door open hard enough that it cracked against the wall. "Stay around people."A pause. Too long."Kai…""What?""I think they know you're coming."He stopped — half a second, no more, his whole body going rigid in the middle of the sidewalk while pedestrians flowed around him like he was a stone in a river."How?""