Chapter 20 · You're the Key

The receipt is still warm in my hand. Well, not my hand. I don't have hands anymore. But the slip of paper sits on the counter in the core room, and I can feel the ink like it's burning through the marble.

ELI ROWAN. CHECKED IN TODAY.

I pull every camera I have toward the vault. The door's still sealed. The wards I laid down weeks ago are holding, same dull silver they've always been. No flicker. No crack. But the register doesn't lie. It's tied directly into the foundation, and if it says someone checked in, they're here.

Somewhere.

I hear boots on the stairs. Ivy.

She's taking them two at a time. I can track her heartbeat through the floor, fast and sharp. She knows. Of course she knows. The register pinged her hunter bracer the second it spat out that receipt.

"Noah." She slams through the core room door. No knock. No warning. Just her, wild-eyed and holding that piece of paper like it's a live grenade. "Explain this."

I don't have a good answer.

"I can't," I say. My voice comes through the speakers I rigged above the core crystal. It sounds thin. Hollow.