The room, however, was old.
New buildings believed in sealed systems. Old buildings knew better. Old buildings had survived fires, floods, attacks, renovations planned by committees, and architects who understood that the official exit was rarely the one anyone used when things went wrong.
On day three, I had found a panel under the kitchen sink.
I had been lucky and bored.
The panel wasn’t flush with the others. The screws had been replaced more recently than the surrounding hardware. The seam had a faint draft. Behind it was a narrow maintenance shaft, older than the current lock system and large enough for a small person who was motivated, flexible, and under-supervised.
I hadn’t used it, until now.
I slid the panel free.
Then I went down.
The shaft was tight, cold, and deeply uninterested in my dignity. It let out into a service corridor two floors below my quarters, behind a wall of storage shelving and a stack of towels that smelled faintly of cedar and bleach.
I paused there, listening. No footsteps, no voices.
The bond pulled east.
Imprecise. More like a compass needle had been set behind my sternum and someone had dragged a magnet beneath the floor.
I followed it.
Service corridor. Utility stair. Back passage behind the kitchen.
The east passage branched from there at a junction I had seen twice during my time as a translator. Left led toward the night-watch room and the pull of the bond. Right ran to the staff entrance near the seaward gate.
Three minutes to the exterior door. One keypad, memorized from the receiving line. Fifteen blocks south to the consulate.
A way out, if I were willing to pretend it was clean.
I went left.
I took the servants’ passage, where the walls were narrow, the lighting was bad, and no one important expected to look.
I was angry, not stupid.
The pull sharpened near an interior door I hadn’t seen before, tucked into a functional stretch of the compound designed for people who already knew where they were going.
My skin felt too tight.
I opened the door.
The room beyond was small and dim, probably a night-watch room: one chair, one desk, a bank of dark monitors, and a narrow window facing an internal courtyard I hadn’t seen from any approved route.
Dominic stood at the window.
He turned when I opened the door, not startled, not even close, which meant he had either heard me coming, felt me through the bond, or been born with the deeply irritating ability to look prepared for everything.
“You should not be here,” he said. “How did you get out, little spy?”
Irritation rose fast. I held it behind my teeth. He wanted the reaction; the name was designed for it, and I hadn’t crawled through a plumbing shaft at two in the morning to reward him.
“I’m not telling you.”
A long pause.
