Chapter 25 · The White-Sleeved Snake

"Grace!" Huo Yanzhan's hand locked around my wrist and yanked me back from the tunnel entrance. "Don't—"

The air changed. Sweet. Wrong.

"Gas," I choked out. "She's flooding the room."

Jingchuan stumbled against the wall, one hand pressed to his mouth. "What—what is that smell?"

"Phosphine, maybe. Or something older." My throat was already tightening. "We've got minutes. Less."

Huo pulled me toward the door. Locked. Of course it was locked.

"The vents." I spun, scanning the ceiling. Three iron grates, and sweet poison was pouring through all of them. "We need to plug them. Now."

"With what?" Huo was already ripping fabric from his sleeve, coughing into his fist. When he pulled his hand away, his knuckles were flecked with red.

No. Not now. Not him.

"Cloth, mud, anything." I grabbed the water basin Su had left—ironic, that—and dumped it. The clay cracked. Good. I scooped the wet sediment and shoved it into Jingchuan's hands. "Pack it into the grates. All of them."

"That won't hold," Jingchuan said, but he was already moving, dragging a stool under the first vent.

"It doesn't have to hold. It just has to slow it down long enough for us to think.