Chapter 14 · The Flood-Tide Cage

The subway swallowed them three levels below the city.

Eve felt the change before she saw it. The air lost its acid bite and turned warm, metallic, thick with the smell of old wiring and drowned concrete. Water rushed somewhere beneath the platform, a deep, muscular sound that traveled through the soles of her boots.

Cain leaned against her shoulder as they descended the maintenance stairs. His blood had soaked through the bandage Nora had wrapped around his ribs. Every few steps, his breath caught between his teeth.

“You’re bleeding again,” Eve said.

“I noticed.”

“You’re welcome to stop being irritating.”

“Can’t. It’s the only thing keeping me conscious.”

She tightened her arm around his waist. His weight shifted against her, heavier than it should have been. The acid burns had blistered across one side of his neck, and his coat hung in charred strips. He had walked into the rain expecting to die. She had dragged him out because dying would have been too easy.

The black box floated between them on a cable harness, its dull casing pulsing with a faint amber glow. A blue map hovered above it, projected in broken lines.