Even fewer made it through them, and those who did were always escorted by Nero himself. It was as if the magic keeping the door secure responded only to him.
That was why she had chosen his office as her target instead of Aelia’s. The praetor had at least granted Nero and Cyrielle access to her space. Nero had granted access to no one, which meant he was protecting something important.
At first, Sloane tried to think of an excuse for Nero to let her in. But Nero himself had become more elusive in the days since their conversation in Aelia’s office. He had asked her why she liked to read on that bench the first day he saw her there, and she had gestured to the window across from it, which had a view of the Sears Tower. After that, he took another route to his workshop so he didn’t have to walk past her.
It took two weeks for Sloane to hear it. She had gotten up when she saw Nero approaching the workshop doors and rushed forward—as much as she could, anyway—to engage him in conversation. But he’d pretended not to see her and slipped into the workshop just as she was close enough to speak to him. She watched as the heavy double doors closed and then—the shift of a deadbolt.
She had been assuming that Nero secured his office through some kind of working on the threshold. But what if his magic was applied only to the lock?
After that, Sloane begged some money from Cyrielle and went to a nearby hardware store—wearing a new brace that she didn’t need to use her crutches with—to buy a hammer and a screwdriver.
“I can’t believe I agreed to this,” Esther said.
“Don’t act like I dragged you here,” Sloane said, pointing at her with the screwdriver. It had a royal-blue handle and the brand name SIPHONA TECHNICA stamped in gold along the side. Sloane hooked a finger around Esther’s watchband and brought the watch face closer so she could see the time. “All right, let’s go. But remember our story if Nero’s there?”
“Your leg siphon thing is emitting a high-pitched noise and we need him to have a look at it,” Esther said. “You know he’s not going to buy that, though, right? We could have just gone to Cyrielle.”
“He’s not going to be there anyway. I’ve been watching his ins and outs for two weeks, and he never stays past five.”
“You’re such a creep.”
Sloane smiled with all teeth and shoved the stairwell door open with her shoulder.
Together she and Esther walked down the wide, windowed hallway that led to Nero’s workshop. They passed the bench where Sloane had spent so much time reading and a monochromatic pink sculpture that reminded her of a kidney. The double doors of Nero’s office looked like they belonged in a castle rather than in the Camel, with huge pins in the old, rusty hinges. Lucky for her and Esther.
“Just tell me if anyone’s coming,” she said to Esther, crouching awkwardly in front of the lowest of the three hinges. She stuck the end of the screwdriver up against the bottom of the hinge pin and hit it with the hammer, forcing the pin up. Once it stuck out above the hinge, she wiggled it free. One down, two to go.
“So the magic on the door doesn’t prevent this?” Esther said. “That seems like a major oversight.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Sloane moved on to the second hinge. “But all he does with magic is secure the lock—the working slides the deadbolt in place and holds it there. The magic isn’t acting on the door itself, because if it were, why would Nero bother with a mechanical lock at all? It would be unnecessary. They rely on magic for everything here.”
“And you thought of this . . . how?”
“I read the newspaper. You wouldn’t believe how many robberies happen in this city just because people rely on magic security and forget that practical measures sometimes undo it—they’ve totally lost touch with how simple things work.” Sloane finished the third hinge and stuck the flat head of the screwdriver between hinge and wall to wiggle the door out of place.
The magical deadbolt held, so the door dangled oddly from that one point like a loose tooth clinging to its last tender ligament.
“Success,” she said. She turned sideways and slipped into the office.
“If we get stuck on Genetrix for some reason,” Esther said, “you should consider a career as