Page 157 of Zenith Tower

Astra

The alarm reached the lower levels in pieces.

Stone broke apart its clean rise and fall and sent the sound through the passages in uneven waves. Between each one came the rush of water beneath the floor and the scrape of our boots.

Caspian led us through a turn so narrow his shoulder brushed the wall. He had learned this route from the loading dock, a piece at a time, whenever the stewards brought supplies across the bridge. I stayed close enough to see the pale edge of his coat in the silver light.

Hale came behind me with Kieran’s left arm across his shoulders. Kieran was moving under his own strength, but the pain from his injured shoulder kept passing through green-gold in sharp, breath-stealing bursts. Each one struck my wrist a heartbeat before I heard it catch in his throat.

Delphine guarded the rear. One hand remained inside her coat over the hearing pages. The other trailed close to the wall without touching it.

“Right,” Caspian said.

The passage dropped steeply. Water shone through narrow channels cut along both sides of the floor, silver running over black stone. Cold mist gathered against my face and in the loose hair at my neck.

A door slammed somewhere behind us.

Another answered farther down.

“They’re closing the cross-passages,” Hale said.

Caspian glanced back. “Can they close the bridge route from here?”

“Not without reaching the lower station.”

“Marrow will be there first.”

The next junction divided around a thick stone support. Caspian started left, then stopped so abruptly I struck his back.

A steward stepped from the dark with a baton already raised.

Hale shifted Kieran toward Delphine and moved past me. The baton came down. He caught the steward’s wrist with both hands, turned beneath the blow, and drove the man shoulder-first into the support. The baton struck stone and fell into the water channel.

The steward tried to call out. Hale’s forearm closed across his throat until his knees gave way.

Hale lowered him rather than letting his head strike the floor.

“He’ll wake,” he said.

“Then we should be gone when he does,” Kieran managed.

Hale took his weight again. We ran.

The air grew colder as the passage descended. The channels widened, throwing broken ribbons of light across the walls. Blood from the frame’s bite showed dark along Kieran’s collar, and Delphine’s silver lines gleamed at her wrist. All three bond-lines showed at my wrist whenever my sleeve slipped back.

We waited out the daylight hours in a disused service bay two turns short of the walkway, listening to the search sweep past twice, until Caspian judged it dark enough to risk the open bridge.

The passage opened onto a long walkway with water running fast on either side. Beyond it stood the final tunnel door. Its iron brace was visible in the silver light.

Marrow waited between us and it.

Four stewards held the walkway behind him, batons drawn. They had left enough room between them to fight without striking one another and none for us to pass.

Marrow’s hair was damp at the temples from the run. He looked first at Hale supporting Kieran, then at Delphine’s closed coat.

His gaze settled on me.

“The hearing is suspended,” he said. “You are being returned to containment.”