‘Afraid not. You’re on your own there.’
Eliza stepped into the darkness first, touching a nervous hand to her hair. Catrin followed. As Maria went after them, I grasped her arm.
‘Don’t take your eyes off her,’ I said against her ear, nodding at Catrin.
‘Naturally.’
‘Tom and I will wait for you here. Remember – anything you can find out is a bonus at this stage.’
She patted my arm and disappeared inside. The Vigile closed the door. ‘I have to return to my rounds,’ she said to me and Tom. ‘Stay out of sight. You won’t find every Vigile sympathetic to your cause.’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
She marched away. Tom and I hunkered down to wait behind a nearby industrial waste receptacle. It would be a long twenty minutes.
‘I trust that Catrin about as far as I could throw her,’ Tom muttered.
The wind howled against the cheap fabric of my boiler suit, chilling my ribcage. ‘I trust most people about as far as I can throw them,’ I said, ‘but if we’re going to win this war, we need most people.’
We stayed near to each other for warmth, keeping an eye on his wristwatch. A lifetime seemed to pass between each click of the second hand.
I wasn’t made to stay behind.
After five minutes, two more Vigiles passed, but neither of them checked behind the waste receptacle. Eight minutes. Ten. Fifteen. Sixteen. By eighteen, I was getting nervous.
‘If they don’t come in time—’ Tom murmured.
‘We are not leaving here without one of those scanners.’
I had hardly finished speaking when three chimes rang out from inside the factory, each note climbing higher than the last.
‘SciPLO Establishment B, this is the Minister for Industry. Be aware that an intruder has been detected. Security protocol is now in effect. All doors to the factory floor and loading bay will close in thirty seconds.’ The Ironmaster’s voice resounded through the building. ‘All personnel, remain at your stations and report any unauthorised activity or individuals immediately to a Vigile or overseer. Failure to do so constitutes high treason. Remember, the safety of your assigned machine is paramount.’
We stared at each other. At any other time, Tom would be advocating caution, but not where Maria was concerned. My attention snapped to the ?ther; I found them almost at once, not far from us. ‘Follow me,’ I said, and we rushed towards our entrance, through the empty kitchen, ending up in a long, wide passageway with an immensely high ceiling. Fluorescent lighting illuminated its concrete floor from one end to the other. Letters on the wall indicated that this was the passage that led to the sleeping quarters.
A low-pitched grinding came to my attention. A massive internal door was closing on our left, sliding downward on its rails – the way to the factory floor, our only way to reach the others. Beyond it was the furnace I had seen when I had dreamwalked in that room; I could feel its heat on my face already, infernal and suffocating. We broke into a dead run, our footfalls drowned by the roar and hammer of machinery. My palms slammed into the door just as it closed.
‘Damn it.’ I stepped back, staring up. ‘There has to be a way to release the doors.’
‘There will be.’ Tom was panting. ‘In the overseers’ office. On the upper floor.’
Footsteps were approaching. Vigiles.
We separated. I turned right, into an offshoot of the central passageway. It was a dead end, but the double doors to a freight lift presented me with a way out. I rattled the button to call it, certain that at any moment a squadron of Vigiles would round the corner and riddle me with bullets. When it arrived, I threw myself inside and groped for the controls. Three floors. I hit UPPER and buckled against the side of the lift.
The lift trundled upward, jolting my stomach. Every heartbeat was a punch, each reminding me that it could be the last. I was in a Scion building, breathing the same air as a high-ranking Archon official, and all the doors were closed. It took all my willpower to keep the panic restrained.
When the lift opened, I sidestepped into a corridor. Off-white walls and a vinyl floor, like you’d find in any office block. A sign reading ADMINISTRATION. Minimal lighting. Pressing myself into a corner, I nudged my focus to the ?ther. Tom was still, and slightly farther from me than anyone else – he must be hiding in the basement. Maria and Eliza were together, and if their proximity to the other workhands was anything to go by, they remained on the factory floor, presumably undetected.
It was Catrin who had given the game away. I should have known she would be the one to put the assignment in jeopardy.
She was close to me. Very close. On this floor. Three unfamiliar dreamscapes clustered around her. I reached into my boiler suit and closed my hand around the handle of my knife.
Price would be up here.
At the end of another corridor, I was faced with a door marked OVERSEER, which was flanked by wall-length windows. When I looked through one of them, the first person I saw was Catrin Attard, bleeding from a fresh wound to her temple. Her wrists were strapped to the arms of a chair. Two Vigiles stood on either side, each grasping one of her shoulders.
Someone was standing in front of her, hands flat on the table that separated them. Catrin’s gaze darted to me. I made to duck out of sight, but seeing Catrin look, her interrogator turned. I found myself facing a man who could only be in his twenties, not much older than me, wearing the uniform of a Scion official.
Price.
It was too late to hide. The Ironmaster took me in with piercing grey eyes, lighter than mine. His hair was dark, his skin smooth and pale, and he wore gold cufflinks.
‘Paige Mahoney.’ He sounded almost friendly. ‘I never expected someone so . . . exciting.’
14
No Safer Place
‘Let me in, Price.’
‘Now, why would I possibly do that?’ His bodyguards had their guns trained on my chest. His voice was muffled by the glass, but I could hear him well enough. ‘I appear to be very secure in here. Let’s keep a door between us, shall we?’
Several knives lay on the table in front of him, no doubt taken from Catrin’s boiler suit.
‘I’m a hands-on kind of person,’ I said.
Price laughed. ‘Yes.’ He lowered himself into a padded chair. ‘I know you tried to enter the factory earlier today. I commend you for your bravery, coming here in your own skin.’