Chapter 23 · No Weapons in a Legal Raid

The door Eli just opened is wrong.

I can feel it in the foundation, the way you feel a tooth crack. The metal frame is mine, sure, but the space behind it isn't. It's cold. Old cold. The kind that doesn't care if you're the dungeon core or just some kid who got flattened by a drone and woke up wired into retail hell.

Eli's still on his knees in front of it, breathing hard. The key shard in his hand is smoking. Not like fire. Like frost burn.

Ivy's already moving toward him.

"Don't." I push a wall tile up between them. Just a speed bump, but she stops.

"Noah." Her voice is flat. The kind of flat that comes right before someone does something stupid. "Move it."

"Not until you tell me what you're about to do."

She doesn't look at me. Can't, really. I'm everywhere and nowhere. But she tilts her head like she's talking to the ceiling. "I'm getting him out."

"Out where? That door doesn't go outside. It goes down."

"I know."

That's when I notice the other people in the corridor. Three of them. Vex's crew. Clean boots, cleaner contracts.