“Hurry up, you two!” Aaron called in a low voice from the floor above us. “The impatient asshole is already on the thirtieth floor.”

My thigh muscles screamed in protest as I dragged my foot up another step, lungs heaving, limbs trembling, stomach threatening to chuck up my dinner. Tears of pain and frustration stung my eyes as I tried to make my abused muscles move faster. A two-minute breather, please. A thirty-second breather. Something. Anything.

But we didn’t have time for that.

Clutching the railing, I forced myself to the next landing and faced another flight. Oh god. Stairs. Who invented these torture devices? I could’ve kept up okay on flat ground—probably—but you could only repeat the same motion so many times before your muscles were all, “Screw this shit,” and quit entirely.

Ezra caught my wrist, tugging me back as I lifted a trembling leg onto the first step.

“Tori,” he said, “let me help.”

“I can do it,” I groaned, grabbing the railing to pull myself onto the step.

He tugged me back again and I slumped against him. Wrapping an arm around my waist, he put his mouth against my ear and whispered, “We won’t tell them. You can have a few minutes to breathe.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, furious and ashamed that I couldn’t keep up. “Okay.”

Pulling his pole-arm off his magnetic baldric, he crouched in front of me, and I hauled my exhausted body onto his back. Hooking his arms under my legs, he jogged up the stairs. I clutched his shoulders, grumbling about his impossible strength and stamina.

Five flights later, when Aaron’s and Zak’s voices echoed around the next bend in the stairwell, Ezra let me slide off his back. He swung his pole-arm over his shoulder, the metal clamping to his baldric, and continued upward.

The short break had done wonders for my poor legs, and I was barely limping as I puffed up the last flight. Zak and Aaron waited beside a door with a large “32” painted on the white wall beside it. The druid had pushed his hood back, and I was pleased to see perspiration shining on his face and Aaron’s. Thirty flights hadn’t been a breeze for them either.

“Why this floor?” I asked as I joined them, Ezra beside me. “Not the top?”

Aaron pointed at the door. A tall, skinny window interrupted the steel face, just wide enough to see if there was a person on the other side. His vest light shone across the pane.

Red droplets ran down the glass, a bloody handprint smearing the gory splatter.

Chapter Seventeen

“Holy shit,” I whispered.

“Varvara—or her pawns—beat us here,” Zak rumbled, cool and businesslike. “There are three floors left—this one, and the next two. We should split up and search them.”

“No,” Aaron countered immediately. “We have no idea what we’re up against. The Miuras and their people could attack us too. We’re safer together.”

“We should start at the top,” Ezra suggested. “Kai and Makiko are probably on the penthouse level, and if Varvara hasn’t made it up there yet, we can warn them.”

“Right.” Aaron nodded. “Let’s go.”

He shot up the stairs at a quick jog, and Zak followed. Ezra grabbed my hand and pulled me with him as we sprinted up the final two flights. My legs were on fire by the time we reached the top—and found the door hanging open, one hinge broken. Deep scratches marred the steel as though someone, or something, had smashed its way inside.

Aaron drew Sharpie, the long blade coming free of its sheath with a slithering sound. Ezra pulled his pole-arm off his back, and I unholstered my paintball gun, loaded with sleep potions.

Zak drew his hood up again, then pushed his coat open so it wouldn’t impede access to his belt, test-tube-shaped vials circling his hips. He stepped into the dark corridor. Aaron went in second, his vest light flashing across the walls. More deep scratches tore through the beige paint.

Spotting a panel of light switches, I flipped them up and down, but nothing happened. No power. Finding Kai could take a while—unless I could speed up the process.

I reached into my belt’s large back pouch, my fingers brushing across a gently ridged surface. Hoshi?

Her dormant form uncoiled in a burst of silvery scales. The bluish sylph floated out of my belt, her huge pink eyes turning from me to Zak. She spiraled around me, her odd little antennae bobbing.

The men watched as I patted her nose. “Hoshi, can you look around and see if Kai is somewhere on this level?”

As I spoke, I pictured what I meant in my mind—Kai’s face, the building, and an imaginary little scene where the sylph led him back to me. She nuzzled my hand, replaying some of my images along with flashes of color and patterns I didn’t understand. Whatever they meant, they gave me a positive vibe.

Her tail squeezed around my waist and she pushed her cool nose into my cheek. Another image flickered inside my head: Zak’s face, but with Lallakai’s features overlaid on his. The sylph couldn’t communicate with words, but I felt her meaning: Be careful.

She slid her tail away, then launched down the corridor in a flowing ribbon of silver.

Zak watched her go, then glanced back at me. “Interesting.”

“What?” I asked nervously, Hoshi’s warning crowding my thoughts.

“She won’t talk to me anymore.”

Based on the sylph’s telepathic vision, I suspected it wasn’t the druid she didn’t want to interact with.

We continued down the corridor, Zak in the lead, Aaron behind him, Ezra and I bringing up the rear. The soft carpet absorbed our footsteps, the simple walls interrupted by blank doors. The quiet was unnerving, and I huddled closer than necessary to Ezra’s side. His head turned, his senses attuned not only to sight and sound but also to the minute shift of air around us.

“Maybe there’s no one here,” I whispered, gripping my paintball gun. “What if—”

A distant boom shook the floor. The overhead lights sparked and flickered weakly before going dark again.

Aaron launched into a sprint, shoving past Zak. The druid rushed after him, and I belatedly pushed my tired legs into motion. With Ezra following, I chased the two guys down the corridor. Aaron whipped around the corner, out of sight, and Zak disappeared after him.

Aaron shouted wordlessly, a sound of shock.

Ezra and I flew around the corner and I came up short, my eyes widening. Aaron and Zak had stopped just ahead of us, but even the two tall, broad-shouldered men, standing side by side, couldn’t block my view of what waited beyond them.

The hall had widened, resembling a posh hotel with numbered doors and oil paintings decorating the walls—where they hadn’t been torn off. The source of the damage stood in the middle of the corridor, so out of place I could barely wrap my head around it.

Welded steel formed the rough shape of a four-legged animal. Blocky head with no features except for a large mouth full of crude teeth. Heavy legs with clawed feet. Gears for joints. Spikes running down its back. And the entire thing was covered in runes that glowed pale red, almost pink.

The steampunk wolf opened its mechanical mouth—and green liquid spouted from its metal gullet.

Aaron and Zak dove aside, and Ezra grabbed me around the waist as he leaped clear. The jet of fluid shot twenty feet down the center of the hall and splashed across the floor. The rug bubbled, reeking white steam roiling off it.

“Caustic poison,” Zak barked. “It’ll eat right through your weapons.”

And, obviously, our poor human flesh.

The mechanical creature launched at Zak with thundering steps. He jumped across the bubbling line of potion to Aaron’s side of the hall, and the clanking wolf whirled after him.

Flames erupted across Aaron’s arms and shot down his blade. He whipped Sharpie in an arc and the blade swung into the canine’s hollow snout with an ear-splitting clang. Fire exploded down the sword, washing over the steel body. The thing didn’t even slow, its lumbering steps backed by several hundred pounds of momentum.

“Shit!” Aaron dodged sideways. “Are these Varvara’s specialty or something? I remember them from last time—they don’t like to die.”

Last time? The memory popped into my panicked brain: suits of armor coming to life in Varvara’s garden; Aaron and Ezra hacking at the metal bodies, unable to stop the enchanted armor.

“What is it?” I squealed from behind Ezra. “Should I shoot it?”

“It’s a golem.” Scarlet light swirled off Zak’s right hand and a curved saber took form in his grip. “Don’t waste your ammo.”

As the thing charged, he swung his saber down. It sliced through the golem’s steel muzzle, but the unstoppable monstrosity bowled into him, oblivious to the new split in its face.

Zak rolled clear, shot to his feet, and struck its neck again. His fae blade ripped through the steel. The golem pivoted, its head hanging on its half-severed neck—but it didn’t seem to notice.

Clanking steps vibrated the floor.

A second wolfish golem stomped around the corner, mouth gaping. What looked horribly like blood dripped from its triangular teeth. It charged like a steel bull, forcing Zak and Aaron to press into the wall to avoid it.

Ezra shot forward. With a gust of wind to propel him, he leaped over the nearer golem, landed between the two, and slammed the butt of his pole-arm down on the one’s half-severed head. Its head tore off with a hideous shriek of metal, and Ezra smashed the other end of his pole-arm in the second one’s side. It jolted from the impact, its side dented in—but the dent did no more to stop it than decapitation had stopped the other golem.

Zak rammed his saber into the neck hole of the headless golem and sliced upward. It lunged into him, almost crushing him against the wall.

“Zak!” Aaron yelled as he dodged around the second one. “How do we kill these things?”

He and Ezra slammed their weapons into their golem from either side. It pivoted with far too much speed for a clumsy hunk of metal, its teeth snapping for Aaron’s thigh. Ezra thrust his pole-arm into its mouth to save Aaron’s leg. Steel teeth crunched down on his weapon and tore it from his grasp.