LOCATION: Cinder Vault Inner Core

TIME: 11:04 a.m.

The door sealed behind her like a tomb.

No alarms. No footsteps. Just silence.

Ember moved through the corridor slowly, flashlight beam slicing through clouds of cold dust. The deeper she went, the more the air felt wrong, thick, electrical, laced with something synthetic.

This was where Rafael built her.

The forgotten floor. The part even Lucien had never seen.

Each step pulled her back to flashes of childhood:

the cold touch of ...