If Silas had an opinion on the matter, he didn’t offer it. Nathaniel said, pointing, “Look. There’s the vault.”
On the opposite side of the arena, on the ground floor, there was a portcullis recessed into the stone. Anyone who climbed down and attempted to reach it would get slaughtered by the pacing Malefict. Unless they managed to put the monster out of its misery first.
Impulsively, she drew Demonslayer and started for the ladder. Nathaniel grabbed her arm. Before she could object, he spun her around and trapped her against the stone. Her thoughts took a moment to catch up. Nathaniel was rigid with tension, his body drawn tight as a bowstring, but he hadn’t been seized by a sudden, passionate desire to kiss her against a dungeon wall. Rather, he was using his dark coat to shield them both from view.
They weren’t alone. At first she heard only the Malefict’s labored snorts and grunts. But then footfalls rattled the walkway nearby. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Director Hyde step onto the path through the passage they had just left behind. She held her breath until he turned, scowling, in the opposite direction, his suspicious gaze failing to detect their hiding spot just a few feet away. They sagged in relief as he set off, unsuspecting.
The feeling was short-lived. Hyde must have been on patrol, heading down to inspect the vault. No matter what he had said in his office, he was too vigilant a man to hear a warning like theirs and completely disregard it. Yet in coming down here, he was putting himself, and his keys, precisely where Ashcroft needed them.
An earsplitting metallic squeal echoed through the cavern. Hyde had used his Director’s key to activate the pulley. Gears churned, winching the chain upward link by heavy link. The Malefict bellowed, straining against its collar, a futile effort; no matter how hard it struggled, the machinery dragged it inexorably through the sawdust. When the winch clanged to a stop, the chain had been tightened so much that the Malefict’s front end hung off the ground. It dangled there like a bull waiting to be slaughtered, head low, dripping ink from reopened sores.
Hyde climbed down the nearest ladder and set off across the arena without so much as a backward glance. He unlocked the portcullis, entered, and shut it behind himself.
The machinery rumbled back to life. Slowly, the pulley began lowering the Malefict to the ground. With a jolt of alarm, Elisabeth realized that they had only moments to cross the arena.
“We have to follow Hyde,” she said, starting for the ladder. “Where’s Silas?”
Nathaniel nodded upward. Elisabeth followed his look, and wished she hadn’t. Silas had evaded Hyde’s attention by climbing straight up the cavern wall, and now he clung there like a spider, gazing down at them with inhuman yellow eyes.
“He’ll catch up,” Nathaniel said. “Let’s go.”
Seconds later, Elisabeth’s boots struck sawdust. When Nathaniel landed beside her, the Malefict turned its stitched, weeping face in their direction. The pulley’s wheel groaned as the monster plodded forward, stretching the chain to its limit, snuffling blindly at the air. Nathaniel gave the ancient machinery a critical once-over. He grabbed Elisabeth’s wrist, hastening them onward.
They were halfway across the arena, running side by side, when there came a deafening, shrieking crash that shook the cavern, and an object bounced past them in a spray of sawdust: the pulley wheel.
There wasn’t time to react. They could only run. Elisabeth felt across the key ring, selecting the largest key by touch. That should be the key restricted to wardens. The problem was, she didn’t know for certain whether it would open this portcullis. Depending on how close they were to the vault, it might respond only to the Director’s personal key. And if that were the case, there would be no time left to turn and make a stand; the Malefict would be upon them, and it would crush them in an instant.
The portcullis drew closer and closer. The Malefict’s shadow stretched across them, the earth shuddering with its bounding strides. She raised the key. Her hand remained steady as she inserted it into the lock, but the Malefict was too fast. Its shadow plunged them into darkness—
And vanished, the ruddy light of the braziers flooding back in. Astonished, she looked over her shoulder. The Malefict lay sprawled on the ground some distance away, insensible, and Silas stood interposed between them, one hand raised in the attitude of