Chapter 18: Ori Dies at Dawn

The water had risen another three centimeters by the time Maren heard them.

Not footsteps. The building didn't carry sound that cleanly anymore — too much of it submerged, the acoustics changed by water pressing against the lower walls. What she heard was the absence of birds. There had been two of them, mechanical things the Gamemakers had placed in the upper windows for texture, their calls looped on a seven-minute cycle. She had been counting the intervals since the second day. The loop broke at 4:47 in the morning, twelve minutes before the light changed from black to gray, and the silence where the sound should have been was a different kind of noise entirely.

She was already sitting up when Cael opened his eyes.