Chapter 29 · The Boy Behind the Wall

"Four minutes."

Sona didn't look at me. Eyes on the door. On the two guards standing in front of it like they had nowhere better to be.

"Then the shift changes and every man in this building knows we're here."

"Four minutes is enough," I said.

"You don't know that."

"I do."

She turned her head just enough to catch me sideways. "How."

I didn't answer. Couldn't. Not crouched in a supply closet that smelled like tallow and old rope with a countdown running in both our heads. The truth was simple and unusable: I'd stood in this exact hallway before. Watched these exact two men rotate off post at the four-minute mark. Watched it happen eight times in eight different lives that ended before this one mattered.

I knew the shift change because I'd died waiting for it once.

"Rhys." Sona's grip tightened on her hilt. "How."

"Guess," I said. "Or move."

She moved.

That was the thing about Sona—she'd curse you out and follow you in the same breath. Like the arguing was just something her mouth needed to do before her body caught up.