Chapter 34 · The Dead Courier’s Route

The clock’s voice followed them into the dark.

Eve heard it in the stone beneath her boots, in the iron ribs of the corridor, in the frantic pulse beating against her throat.

If Eve Calder lives tonight, Nacre City will stop forever.

The words had come from the projected face of her future self. They still hung inside Eve’s skull, brighter than the sparks crawling over the walls.

Ahead, Kieran slammed his shoulder into a warped brass door. The door groaned but did not move. Black veins of clockwork ran across its surface, each gear turning backward, then forward, then backward again.

“Tell me that isn’t the vault,” Eve said.

“It’s the vault.”

“Tell me you know how to open it.”

Kieran glanced over his shoulder. Red light from the living core cut across his face, sharpening the hollow beneath his cheekbone. “I know how to get us killed trying.”

“Good. I was worried we’d run out of options.”

His mouth tightened. Even now, with the city folding around them and the future screaming through the walls, he almost smiled.