Chapter 15 · Grayson Hits the Underworld

The alarm hits before I can read the rest of the glowing text.

Not a fire alarm. Worse. The kind of sound that makes your teeth hurt, like metal scraping against bone. The archive lights flicker red, then die completely. Emergency strips kick in along the floor, barely enough to see Mara's face go white.

"That's the perimeter breach," she says. "Someone just forced their way through the wards."

Silas is already moving. He grabs my wrist and pulls me toward the back exit, but the door slams shut on its own. All the doors do. I hear them locking, one after another, a chain reaction through the entire building.

"They sealed us in," Mara says. She's got her phone out, fingers flying. "The whole district just went into lockdown. No one in or out until—"

The wall explodes.

Not the door. The actual stone wall to our left. Chunks of rock and plaster spray across the room. I throw my arm up to shield my face and Silas yanks me behind a filing cabinet. My ears are ringing. Dust everywhere.