I draw back as the door creaks open. A team of Guards stands in front of our cell. Like all the others who have come to check on us this week, their movements are rigid and stilted, clearly rehearsed, and I’m betting all four of them are fresh out of training. Lyon probably assumes it’s the smartest thing he’s done, getting rid of the old Guard and picking a brand-new squad of his own, but I’d take four seasoned officers with blood on their hands over thirty green asswipes who’ve never seen a fight.

A Guard—the one whose ear I pulled through the bars—sneers at me as he approaches the cell. He grins as he holds up two sets of wrist restraints and fire-retardant mitts. Since we’re barely out of stasis, I guess they figure we don’t pose much of a threat. Not to a whole team of them.

But one? I can handle one. It’s a simple matter of getting outside this cell and separating the weakest from the herd.

“Where are we going?” I ask as he turns me to face the wall. The restraints click shut, painfully tight. He shoves me toward the door, passing me off to one of his friends, both his ego and his ear obviously still bruised. He drags Kai from her bunk, wrenching her arms back hard, not bothering to answer me.

“Chronos is giving you a little reprieve for good behavior,” one of the others says, making the frostbitten Guard grimace.

The crow outside our cell flaps on her perch, watching us as we’re led out of the holding area into the winding tunnels of the catacombs. My eyes rake over the Guards as we walk, but I’m unable to discern the leader. They may have been granted power over all four elements, but I’d bet my soul they can only control one—the one Gaia gave them when she made them a Season. It takes time to master the elements, to weaponize them.

We round a corner into an older wing of the Administration level. I register the subtle incline in the strain of my legs, an angle so slight I might not be bothered by it if it weren’t for the stasis fatigue. The ramplike hall widens into a brighter corridor, and Kai and I wince, our eyes slow to adjust as the torches give way to fluorescent lights in high, white ceilings.