The ward hit me like ice water poured down my spine.

I staggered. One hand shot out to the stairwell wall and missed and then Cassian's hand closed around mine, fingers locking between mine, and he was moving, pulling me up the stairs fast and low.

"Go," he said. One word.

We went.

Below us the footsteps were multiplying. Not one set, several, moving with the coordinated spread of a search pattern. Enforcers. Fanning out from the corridor below, looking for whatever had tripped the ...