Bolan pops up from tying his boots.
“This way.” I lead them all farther into my closet, raising my hand and placing it over a section of the wall at about shoulder height.
“Wait,” Coda says over the phone. “Lesson one. When working with me, I do all the tech. Hold your phone up.”
I oblige, having no idea how the tech awry even knew there was a palm reader hidden in the wall paneling.
“I thought this was the panic room,” Sully says, pulling a thin-ribbed black scarf out of his pocket and twining it around my neck. A touch of his essence keeps it pinned perfectly in place.
Energy shifts through the phone in my hand, still held up to the wall. Thankfully, my own power doesn’t rise to try to thwart it. A hidden door slides open before us, revealing a well-lit, steel-walled room. “It is. It’s also a second egress.”
“The royal guard are tied to all these security measures,” Elias says.
Coda pipes up from my phone. “Not right now they aren’t.”
Blinking against the brightly lit interior, I step through the door into the luxury panic room, ignoring everything as I cross toward the second concealed door.
“What’s the second lesson, tech?” Elias asks coolly.
“That’s between Mirth and me, Lord Hereford,” Coda says tersely. “You’re just along for the ride. I’ll happily ditch you if needed.”
Elias throws me a look. But I just hold my phone up to the second hidden palm reader and say, “The kids are in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” Sully asks. “More than the phone being broken and the apartment empty?”
“Coda?” I prompt.
There’s a long pause. The second concealed doorway slides open, beyond which a well-lit stairwell, also of steel construction, stretches downward.
“The kind of trouble that comes with cages,” Coda says.
Bolan slips around me, taking the stairs first. Heart pounding at Coda’s characterization of what the kids might be experiencing, I follow. Sully is at my back, Elias just behind.
“But don’t worry.” Coda’s fingers clatter over their keyboards. “It might be a new playground, but I’m pretty certainI know these assholes. Turn right in the alley. I’ve already got a car waiting for you.”
“We should inform the royal guard,” Elias says behind me.
“I’ll keep them in the loop,” Coda says. “But just a few minutes behind. Mirth and I have an agreement.”
“The favor?” I ask. “We didn’t specify.”
Elias huffs behind me, totally peeved and not at all cool about it. But still with us.
Bolan unlocks the door at the base of the stairs — it’s physically bolted in five separate places — and we step out into the alley. The light over the door winks out, as do the rest of the lights punctuating the alley’s darkness. Elias’s contribution to our sneaking away from my sure-to-be-pissed guards, even while protesting.
“Ah, you are handy, Earl,” Coda says. “And I think you’ll like our friendship, Princess.”
“That’s the favor, then? Open-ended friendship?”
“No. The friendship is a bonus.”
“You’ll help me rescue the kids.”
“I will. And you’ll get me access. The block on your kids’ phone should have made it obvious to your techs. I need someone to get me into their system, and this is a perfect opportunity.”
“Who?” Sully asks. “Into whose system?”
“The Möbius Group. If I’m right, that’s who has your kids. It’s too fucking clean a snatch. The lack of fingerprints all over it is a dead giveaway.”
