Tamara Gupta’s hand emerged from the wall like a horror movie and clamped down on my jacket like she intended to pull me in there with her, willing or not. I grabbed the ledge with both hands and pulled myself up and in. I was stuck as soon as I got into the vent, absolutely stuck, head and shoulders in a tiny space and the rest of me exposed and helpless for the Dreamer-bots to land on and burrow into my skin with their tiny, metal-eating mouths. Tamara pulled relentlessly on my shoulder, but I was stuck—

The ground struck me hard and unexpected. I pulled my legs out from the vent to curl up on the ground, gasping for breath in this new, open space.

I could see in here somehow. On the floor beneath me were large flat pieces of metal like the blades of some giant fan. This had been some sort of nexus for the airflow, when the ship had been perfectly functional. Emergency lighting strips were set into the wall at even intervals, and it was that light I could see by, a faintly bluish white that reminded me of Indigo—who at that very moment hurtled through the narrow vent, landing hard next to me, his blade still drawn.

I was sure of it now: in the distance, echoing through the empty halls that separated us, I heard the Dreamer humming.

My heartbeat jolted in my chest. “We’re safe in here now, right?” I said. “We can’t fight them, we can’t run from them, but this is a good place to hide? They can’t find us?”

“They can find us,” Tamara said grimly. “But there’s a manikin nest not far from here. We have to hope that they find the nest first.”

“That’s your grand plan? Maybe sacrifice a manikin?”

Tamara flipped down a cover over the open vent, which she latched into place over the opening, sealing it shut. “I told you. There’s no beating the Dreamer. All you can do is hope they kill someone else instead. Now shut up, or they’ll find us.”

Then she raised the index finger of her good hand to her lips, forbidding as a librarian.

Indigo, braced on his elbows, held his breath. I wrapped my clammy hands around my knees. Muffled through the wall, I heard the quiet, ominous hum of the swarm.

The buzzing grew near by slow and terrible degrees. I heard the sound grow louder. I heard the door that Indigo had shut become unlatched. I heard the sound of the swarm filling the room just beyond Tamara’s hideout, humming as deliberate and unstoppable as the rain.

Tamara pressed her back to the wall, blood trickling down her cheek, a grim and ready set to her mouth despite the broken arm tucked into her shirt. Indigo’s chest was still—Ministers, I remembered, could last without air longer than humans. He gazed down his own body at the vent cover, a narrow dark stare that promised whatever came through the passage would have to contend with him.