“You tell me,” Liam said, eyebrows drawn down. “You’re the one who seemed so sure we’d be safe down here.”

“I . . .” Rebeka couldn’t answer that—not now, not without explaining so much more than she could put into words. “Let’s just go.”

Together, they stepped out, slowly continuing in the direction they’d been headed, but walking backward, facing the way they’d come. They didn’t want to encounter any more awful surpri—

“Halt! Stop right there—”

A guard skidded around the corridor, sliding on some unknown slickness on the stone floors. His trembling hands betrayed him as he lifted his rifle, clutching a wobbly flashlight in his supporting hand. Rebeka raised her arm, gun in hand, while Daniel froze, glowering, and Liam took a threatening step forward.

An electric crackle echoed down the hallway the guard had come from. The guard gasped; the beam of his flashlight sliced back toward the hall as he turned to look behind him.

“Who’s there?” the guard shouted. Rebeka took a step back; whatever he’d heard had snagged his attention. If it would hold him a moment longer—

Two black tendrils of smoke darted across the beam of light and coiled around the guard’s legs.

The guard’s screams were like silk ripping apart, shrill and anguished, as the darkness dragged him off. He fell face-first onto the tiles and scrabbled for purchase, but found none. All they saw was one last horrified expression gleaming in the dropped flashlight’s beam before the guard disappeared the way he’d come.

Rebeka and Daniel both stared at Liam. “Did—did you—”

“I wish.” He shuffled forward, taking a wide path around the corridor’s mouth. “C’mon.”

Before she could shout at him to wait, Liam went staggering, swaying, toward the junction ahead. Rebeka laced her fingers through Daniel’s and chased after him, shielding her face with her free hand as another lightbulb exploded above them.

They reached the end of the corridor and turned left. Total darkness welcomed them, and still that soupy silence. She strained her ears for anything—a slithering noise, a hiss and rattle like something ready to strike. Her heart felt lodged somewhere inside her jaw. For a moment, she felt the rush and beat of powerful wings, like when she used to race across the banks of the Tiergarten pond, sending flocks of geese scattering. Then it was gone, as quickly as it had come, as smoky and intangible as all her other foretellings.

“Take my hand.” It was Liam, somewhere on the other side of the corridor.

She started to protest that she was nowhere near him until she felt Daniel shift beside her to close his hand around the American’s.