Henry’s head lolled forward as the comm crackled at August’s collar. “Second floor: we’ve got nothing.”

“There are two dead bodies over here,” said Kate. “Both human.”

Harris reappeared. “Rooms are clear.”

“There’s no one else here,” said Soro.

It didn’t make sense.

“Third floor: empty,” said another voice on the comm.

August looked around. Where were the Malchai? Where were the Fangs? Where were all the monsters? He saw the same questions written on Kate’s face as she drew a tablet out from beneath one of the corpses.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” said Ani, tugging at the device.

“Wait—” started Em, but Ani was already pulling the collar away from Henry’s throat, prying the pieces apart with a force that no one should use when handling a live bomb.

But then August realized, it wasn’t live.

It wasn’t a bomb at all. Just a collar, like the ones worn by the Fangs, with a few added pieces of colored wire, a timer.

“What the hell?” said Harris.

“Fourth floor: nothing here.”

With the collar free, Ani eased the tape from Henry’s mouth. He was hoarse, his breath rasping, but his words echoed through the penthouse. “It’s a—trap.”

Everyone stiffened as the reports continued on the comms.

“Fifth floor: we haven’t found a thing.”

“If it’s a trap,” said Em, “then why haven’t we been attacked?”

“Because,” said Kate, holding up the tablet, “we’re not the target.”

Through a streak of blood on the screen, August saw a map of the city, a too-familiar building drawn over a grid. The Compound.

Kate was already moving back toward the elevator. “We need to go. Now.”

Soro issued a string of orders on their comm as Jackson and Ani got Henry on his feet. His legs nearly buckled, the air wheezing in his chest. His skin was gray.

“Stay with me,” said Em.

Kate called the elevator, and August thought of Ilsa, standing at the Compound doors, of Colin in the lobby, of ten thousand innocent people crammed into a building meant for fifteen hundred.

The elevator chimed, but when doors opened, it wasn’t empty.

Alice stood in the pool of light.

“Going somewhere?”

The truck jerked and jarred over the uneven ground as it barreled through the tunnels beneath the city, its twin beams of light carving a path through the solid black. Beyond the vehicle the Corsai hissed, but Sloan would make it up to them. After all, there would be plenty of corpses soon.

At last the hole came into sight.

Alice had done her job well—a large crater had been opened between the new tunnel and the old, the debris cleared away to make a kind of road. The truck crawled through, and emerged into an abandoned subway station. A broad set of stairs had once dead-ended in a section of ceiling where the subway had been closed up, built over, but a blast had opened that, too.

The Malchai unloaded the cage from the truck as Sloan made his way up the stairs and stepped into the space above. He spread his arms in triumph.

He was standing inside the Compound.

It was a simple concrete hall, S3 stenciled on the walls, a set of open steel doors leading on to cell-like rooms. They would be perfect, he thought, for the Sunai, Soro in this one and August in that. It would be simple enough, starving them until they went dark.

The Malchai hoisted the shrouded cage into the hall and Sloan’s gloved hands came to rest above the golden sheet. His skin prickled with pain but also delicious anticipation. It was like the moment before a hunt, those precious seconds after his prey had been released, when he let the tension build inside him, let his senses heighten, until everything went sharp, went clear.

“Can you feel them, up above?” he murmured. “They are my offering to you.”

Sloan wrapped his fingers in the gold sheet, savoring the scorching heat as he pulled it free. He imagined himself a magician performing a trick, only instead of hoping to render the cage empty, he hoped it was still full.

And it was.

Silver eyes hung in a cloud of shadow, meeting his gaze just before a siren began to blare.

Sloan looked up and saw the single red eye of a security camera and smiled, because the alarms were far, far too late.

The cage was empty.

The shadow was gone.

The power around him flickered, dimmed, and seconds later, from somewhere above, Sloan was rewarded by the sound of screams.

It finds

death

waiting

in ten thousand

beating hearts

ten thousand

restless bodies

tuned like

instruments

ready

to be played

and together

they will

make

such

wonderful

music.

Alice stepped out of the elevator.

Kate’s stomach turned at the sight of her. The Malchai was dressed in Kate’s old clothes, the sleeves stained with dried blood. She’d even pulled her white hair back into a ponytail, her red eyes glowing beneath pale bangs.

August was already raising his violin and Soro’s flute was halfway to their mouth, but before either of them could play, Alice opened her hand, revealing a detonator.