Chapter 3: Lyra Voss Arrives Uninvited

The first sign that something was wrong in the tunnels ahead was the silence.

Not the ordinary silence of flooded subway corridors, which had its own texture — the drip and settle of water finding new levels, the distant mechanical whir of drone patrols overhead, the small sounds of seven people trying very hard to be nothing. This was different. This was the silence of a space that had recently contained violence and had not yet decided what to do about it.

I held up my fist. Behind me, the group stopped.