Chapter 26 · The Ledger Wants Blood

Evan was hanging over a set of spinning iron teeth, and the ledger nailed to his chest was bleeding through the cover.

Not metaphorically. Actual blood. Running down the old black leather in thin red lines.

"Nia," Evan said, way too calm for a guy one bad chain-link away from becoming gear paste. "Hey. Don't do the thing where you panic and start picking stuff at random."

"I don't do that."

A gear slammed into another gear beneath him. Metal screamed. Evan's whole body jerked in the chains.

"You absolutely do that," Sera snapped from somewhere to my left.

I found her crouched behind a waist-high control box, one hand pressed to her side. Blood had soaked through her gray shirt. Her tracker jacket was gone. So was the smug little knife she usually kept at her hip.

Good. That meant somebody had taken it.

Bad. That somebody was probably my father.

The chamber looked like the basement of a machine that had eaten a cathedral. Stone walls. Rusted pipes. Brass rails. Chains running through holes in the ceiling. Everything moved. Everything clicked. And all of it led toward the massive circular door at the far end.

The final lock.