The jeeps hit the blackout zone and plunged in, their high beams scattering the creatures in the dark. August leaned over and spoke into her good ear.

“What’s wrong?”

Nothing. Something. Everything.

She wasn’t sure.

She had been, until she’d seen Henry Flynn on that feed, bound up like a prize, like a present. It was too simple. Too obvious. Too easy.

Was it a taunt? Was it a trap? What was waiting for them in that tower? Sloan? Alice? The Chaos Eater? Were they all playing by Sloan’s rules? Did they have a choice?

She was missing something—they were all missing something—and it was right there, just out of focus, a glance out of sight.

“Kate?” pressed August.

“What if we’re wrong?” she murmured softly, so that only he could hear. “What if this is a mistake?”

August’s brow furrowed. “This is what Henry wanted,” he said. “What we needed. A reason to attack.”

And he was right.

Everything was going exactly to plan.

And that was exactly why she didn’t trust it.

The jeeps came to a stop at the base of the tower.

August strained to hear as they cut the engines, but there were too many soldiers, too much static.

They kept the lights up, blocking out the darkness, and the Corsai shifting hungrily within it. Claws scraped against the sides of the jeeps wherever the light failed to reach, a high-pitched whine of nails on metal.

The Night Squads gathered at the base of the stairs. Most had guns, but Kate gripped an iron spike, August had his bow out like a sword, and Soro held their flute-knife in a fighter’s grip. They climbed the tower steps as if every one of the six stairs might be rigged, but nothing happened. No wires tripped. No sudden blasts.

August and Soro took the lead, stopping before the tower doors. The space beyond was dark and August spread his hands against the glass, listening for the tick of a bomb, the rattle and hiss of Corsai waiting to be unleashed—but all he heard were the racing hearts of the FTF at his back, and a soft, almost imperceptible breathing somewhere inside. He nodded at Soro, and together they threw open the tower doors.

Light grenades rolled across the lobby floor, the bounce of metal on stone followed a second later by waves of glaring white as the FTF poured in, their weapons raised. A dozen Malchai sprang up, hissing in surprise before lunging at the nearest soldiers, their teeth bared.

August turned and slashed a monster’s throat as Kate drove her spike through another’s chest, and Harris made a triumphant sound as he cut down a third. Soro dispatched two more, clearing a path, and they sprinted across the lobby to the bank of elevators on the other side. Emily got there first, calling the car as the rest reached the doors and spun back to face whatever was coming for them.

But nothing came.

The dozen Malchai were dead, and the other Night Squads were already peeling off, heading for the other floors.

Too easy, thought August as the doors slid open behind them.

“Too easy,” whispered Kate as they stepped inside. She punched the button for the penthouse with the familiarity of someone returning home. She seemed to realize it, too, her hand hovering in the air.

“Don’t jinx us,” warned Ani as the elevator rose.

“Yeah,” said Jackson. “We can fall to our death at any second.”

They all went quiet then, the only sounds in the steel box their heartbeats and the almost-inaudible murmur of Emily marking time.

August had never been afraid of dying, for all he thought about it. It bothered him, of course, the idea of being unmade, but his own death was a concept he couldn’t grasp, no matter how hard he tried.

But loss—that was a thing that scared him.

The loss of those he cared for.

The loss of himself.

The absence left by both.

Leo would have scorned such a thing, Soro wouldn’t understand the point, and Ilsa was never one to dwell on the inevitable. But to August, that fear was the shadow in his life, the monster he could fight but never kill, the reason he had wanted so badly not to feel.

And as he stood there, surrounded by his family, his team, his friends, the fear took hold, because Ilsa was alone and Henry was dying and so much of what he loved could fit within a metal box.

And it could all be lost.

Kate gave his hand a single squeeze before the elevator stopped and the doors slid open.

The penthouse stretched before them, quiet and dark, and the first thing August heard was the sound of stifled breath. He barreled forward without thinking, down the hall and into the living room, and there he was.

Henry.

Bound to the chair, dazed and pale, but alive.

The red numbers flashed on the collar at his throat.

24:52

24:51

24:50

“Ani,” ordered Emily, but the tech was already there at Henry’s side, and Jackson, too, checking his vitals as Harris and Soro moved through the apartment.

Em knelt before her husband. “I’m here,” she said. “We’re here. You’re an absolute fool, and I’m going to kill you after we save you, but we’re here.”

Henry tried to speak, but his mouth was taped shut, and when Em reached to pull the tape free, Ani stopped her. “Don’t touch anything,” she warned, “not until I defuse this.”