stairwell smelled of diesel and cold stone, and my footsteps came back at me off the con

ulls, the low hum of the

He had gone to the Council hall on the European side at eight and taken two warriors with him, and I had logged

is tea flask still on the counter, and the little radio behind it played a station from the

al, behind a curtain that smells of old rope. I put my hand

, and they were out. Every one of them. I stood still in the doorway and let my eyes change. The wolf does that for me when I ask, and the co

the s

stripe, and the air tastes of salt. I reached the corridor and put my hand on the lock plate. It was warm. So

oor, chestnut and clean linen and the sharp green smell of the herbs she kept in her room. Under that, f

me through the door, muf

he lock was

m the outside and then closed it agai

ck from

de I am not supposed to use, the one every dispatcher carries in his head for a night when the Alpha is unr

t red. The over

m controls had just told me the code was wrong. Which meant the code she had whispered to me was not the code that opened her doo

again. "What is ha

de did n

my door earlier. I heard the beep

the little camera above the stairwell that had been turned to face the wall.

d anyone

n Alpha code he was never given." I said it flatl

he said it was the new emergency code and that I

assigned to the Lu

"She wore the house grey. She had the key card. She tol

Cem would be at the Council hall tonight. Three, that person had put a phone in Selin's hand and told her to call the hotline if anything went wrong, and the hotline had recorded her whispering a false code to me. Four,

I said. "Or his override

airs, and at the top my pho

of text: The board is still open. The name field is empty because she called fro

rd was still glowing, and I opened the record for the twelve nineteen call

e under Luna wing, sub-level two. It

I put my finger on the line and read it again, and then I looked at the timestamp, and then I looke

y own phone. Not the official log. A private copy,

r, and that phone rang through to nothing too. Somewhere on the water, the ferry horn so

against the wall under the camera and climbed up and turned the camera back to face the corridor. Then I sat dow

g time. When she spoke,

ned my door tonight. And if Nadia opened my door, she did n

ht on the lock plate. "

can read that board," Selin said. "And she wante

the lock plat