Chapter 10 · The City Wants a Death

The water was already waist-high when Marcus hit the street.

Not rain. The canal locks had blown. He could hear them from here, metal screaming against stone, and the flood was pouring through the lower district like someone had cracked open a dam. People were running, but not fast enough. The current had teeth.

Marcus's boots slipped on wet cobblestone. His ribs still hurt from the vault door. His palm was bleeding through the bandage he'd wrapped it in after cutting it open to get inside, and now the whole city was drowning and he had maybe ten minutes before Cassian reached the core.

Ten minutes to choose.

He could see the central tower from here. Three blocks north, tall enough that the flood wouldn't touch it. The core was in there. He knew it. He'd felt the resonance spike the second the vault opened, a straight line pulling him toward that building like a hook in his chest.

Cassian was already halfway there.

But the water was rising, and someone was screaming two streets over.

Marcus ran toward the screaming.

The flood hit him at the corner.