Chapter 30 · The Door Under Food Court

The key sits in my palm. Well, not my palm. The light construct I use when I need hands. Same difference.

It's old. Bronze, maybe older. The teeth are worn flat on one side like someone tried to force it, gave up, then tried again a decade later. Eli pressed it into Ivy's hand two minutes ago, right before he took the freight elevator down. She passed it to me without a word.

Now we're standing in the food court, and I'm trying not to think about what "under" means.

"Under," Ivy says, because apparently she can read my face even when I don't technically have one. "He said under. Not near. Not behind."

"I heard him."

"So?"

I spin the key between my fingers. The metal hums. Not the good kind of hum. The kind that means it's looking for a lock I don't want it to find.

"So I built this place back up," I say. "Tile by tile. The food court took me three weeks. You remember what it looked like when you first got here?"

She does. I can see it in the way her jaw tightens. The food court had been a rot pit.