Chapter 12 · The First Name

"We've got twenty minutes before the freezer locks," Nia said, not looking up from the screen. "After that, you're breaking in or you're not getting in at all."

Jace leaned over her shoulder, watching the security grid flicker across three monitors. Red dots marked patrol routes. Blue ones marked cameras. The yellow square in the center was the sub-basement archive where Night Audit kept the hard copies.

"Twenty's tight," Mara said from the doorway. She hadn't moved since they got here. Just stood there with her arms crossed, staring at the back of Nia's head like she was deciding whether to arrest her or thank her.

"Tight's all you get." Nia tapped a key and one of the red dots blinked out. "I just bought you an extra two minutes on the third-floor route, but the basement's automated. No guards to bribe. No shifts to time. Just a magnetic seal that drops at 12:27 and doesn't lift till morning."

"Then we go now," Jace said.

"No." Nia finally turned around. Her face was sharper than usual, all the easy humor scraped off.