“There’s no way out,” she said miserably. “He just keeps moving farther down.”

“Down where?” I pressed.

Margaret A. glanced at the mirror, and I met her eyes. Crocodile tears started to roll down her sculpted cheeks, and she broke my gaze. But then, in the mirror, I saw what she’d really been looking at—an imperfection, some kind of seam.

A door.

86

DYLAN PUSHED THROUGH the mirrored door to find a winding metal staircase that reached down what looked like several hundred feet into darkness. It was so narrow, there was no question that only one of us could fit at a time.

Max protested, of course, but Dylan insisted on going first. Even aside from Angel’s warnings about protecting Max, Gunther-Hagen was Dylan’s maker, and he needed to face him alone.

“Don’t fall off,” Margaret warned him.

That warning seemed obvious, but the staircase was so narrow it hugged Dylan’s hips, and as he descended into what felt like the center of the earth, it shuddered and creaked under his weight, threatening to pitch him into the abyss beneath him. He thought he could hear creatures in water splashing somewhere far below, hissing and snapping their jaws.

But when he finally reached the bottom, the staircase ended on solid ground—a street. Dylan blinked up at a door, confused. It looked exactly like the door to the mansion where he’d first found the doctor. The streets were holographic projections, Dylan knew, but the reproduction was incredible.

The odd sense of déjà vu continued as his boots echoed across the marbled tile and he approached the grand ballroom and saw Dr. Gunther-Hagen sitting in his office chair, just as he’d left him. Alone.

However, this time, hundreds of screens lined the walls—world maps, weather reports, graphs of ash trajectory, and recordings from his Horsemen.

“A10103,” the doctor said, swiveling to greet him.

“Actually, it’s just Dylan.” He removed his worn leather gloves and tossed them to the floor between them.

“How disappointing,” the doctor said, but he was grinning with satisfaction, and it made Dylan’s skin crawl.

“I am not the monster you think I am, Dylan. I only wanted to make you stronger,” he said earnestly. “Look around. You can have the life you want. You don’t even realize you’re fighting against your own kind.”

Dylan laughed aloud, and the harsh sound echoed up into the frescoes. He saw nothing of himself reflected in this egomaniacal man who had created him. Once, this had been the person Dylan knew best. But he’d become more and more unrecognizable, and now Dylan felt that he had nothing in common with him.

Absolutely nothing.