“When? Just a few days ago. He said we’d be better off that way. Why?”

Jess felt himself smiling tightly; how like Dario to do something smart and at the same time demonstrate his arrogance. “Because I recognize it. It’s my family’s code.”

“Don’t tell me Dario’s a long-lost cousin!”

“Just an ass,” Jess said. “He asked me about the code once. I told him it was unbreakable. So of course he broke it. And now he’s using it. Idiot.”

“The contents?” Wolfe prompted impatiently. Santi, who’d said nothing, pushed himself off the wall he’d been holding up to stand next to them.

“There’s a hidden section in the Iron Tower. Several floors unaccounted for in all of the records that exist. What’s above the garden level, where the Translation comes in?”

Wolfe frowned. “Nothing. That’s the top of the Tower.”

“No, that isn’t true,” Thomas said. His eyes turned blank, the way they did as he performed calculations Jess couldn’t even fathom inside his head. “There must be at least four more floors above it. Possibly five.”

“Morgan would have found it by now. She’s had nothing but time to look!”

Jess sent Wolfe a warning look. “If Thomas says it’s there, it’s there. Perhaps we could hide in these hidden floors. Perhaps there’s even an escape of some kind there.”

“Don’t you think if there was a way upstairs, someone else would have found it by now?”

Wolfe hadn’t said anything, but he looked over their heads at Santi, who raised his eyebrows.

“We can try,” he said. “But I have a feeling that anything that’s secret inside the Iron Tower may be a great deal deadlier than it looks.”

Jess slept poorly, even as tired as he was. All the day’s events kept jumping through his mind, and the knowledge that Morgan was here, within reach, left him feeling restless. When he rose at the first light of dawn the next day, his first thought as he looked out the narrow, unbreakable window was, This is the last time I’ll see Alexandria. One way or another, they’d either leave this place for good or die here.

Not surprising to him that Wolfe and Santi were already up and dressed. Wolfe still wore a Scholar’s robe over his plain shirt and trousers. Santi had put on his uniform. Khalila emerged just a few minutes after, fresh and lovely in a dark blue dress and head scarf.

She smiled at Jess. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “You?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t seen Thomas yet. Maybe he’s the late riser among us.”

But he wasn’t. Glain was true to her word and appeared just a moment later, with Thomas walking at her side as she climbed the stairs. They were talking with an ease and animation that seemed vaguely surprising to Jess, given their circumstances.

And then Morgan. She’d changed into a practical costume: trousers and a gray jacket. Against the plain fabric, her gold collar seemed far too bright. She’d pulled her brown hair back in a twist. All business.