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Gwyneth looked back at them, fear brimming her eyes with tears as the shape shifted to life. “I’m sorry.”

She tore out of the way, dragging Estelle with her. Lily followed, catching the sheen of their hair in the dark as they fled down a tunnel. She reached out toward Estelle who was reaching back.

A heavy thud fell behind her.

“Lily!”

She skidded to a stop, cursing as the girls faded completely from her vision. She whirled back to Aarin and whatever it was that Gwyneth awakened.

It was creeping toward Aarin on all fours like a pieced together panther. Sharp contours of black metal made up the shape of its body. Large, knife-like claws scraped against the ground as it prowled. Its square head was completely still and locked onto Aarin.

Lily lifted her pistol from her hip and fired at it. It only bounced off of its shell, but it was enough to get its attention. It cocked its head and leaped toward her. She scrambled back and closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable

A burst of light broke past her lids, and a hiss like water extinguishing a pile of coal forced her to open them. Between her and the machine was a wall of pale red light, opaque at the curved edges and fading into transparency like a massive bubble.

She got to her feet, finding Aarin behind the beast, lifting a hand in her direction.

He was using the graft.

It forcibly snapped its jaws shut and backed off. It twisted its head the other way before running at her again. Lily flinched, though it only ignited the wall.

It was a void. A machine crafted using ghostsoil. She’d never seen one—never heard of them until she caught up with Kyer’s crew. Lead bullets wouldn’t pierce its shell.

Her gaze drifted to the lantern.

But it was sensitive to heat.

“Throw it!” she yelled. “The lantern!”

Aarin swung the lantern high, throwing it down against the back of the void. The lantern shattered, and the oil ignited, drowning the void in flames. It screeched, reeling back and thrashing wildly from side to side. Aarin dropped the shield, and Lily jumped to the opposite side of the room with him.

The amount of oil in the lantern was enough to distract, but not enough to burn long. As the flames died, the void steadied itself. Lily pulled Aarin into the darkness. They crouched low as the machine vanished from sight. A subtle hum of rhythmic vibrations pulsed from its body. Steam hissed from within, and it reset. The red of its eyes scanned the room, and not finding them, it stalked away.

They needed something stronger. A weapon that could pierce its body.

She pictured the blueprints of the property. If her memory aligned with where they were now, the void was between them and the tunnel that led to the armory—the one the girls ran down. The other led to the emergency exit out in the woods.

“We need guns. Ghosted guns,” Lily whispered.

The void’s claws grazed over the stone floor. Its eyes appeared through the dark, searching for them.

Aarin shuffled by her side, then lifted his arm. Across the room, something hit the wall and clattered to the floor. The void turned its attention toward the sound.

“You go,” he breathed, searching beside her for another rock. “I’ll keep it busy.”

Keeping crouched, Lily moved along the wall. She glued her eyes to the darkness, looking for the subtle sheen of the void’s metal. Creeping along, she heard it but couldn’t see it. The steady hum broke to her ears, and she slowed. She pressed her hands along the wall until she caught another bend of the room. She slipped in, then crept down the tunnel.

She heard no more from the void, only the clattering of another rock far behind her.

Lily let her breathing come in heaves. She started running with one hand on the wall. Her lungs were exhausted, her heart out of control, and…

A light. Faint and soft, but gods it was a light! An end, an exit!

Her feet carried her around a small curve, and she damn near slammed into a gate.

A locked gate.

Hands braced on the bars and the sound from her impact still ringing in the air, Lily shook her head in disbelief.