The portal dropped him back into the sunken city with the familiar lurch of dimensional transit, and Dante stepped out of the shimmering gateway with his hand already on his blade.
He scanned his surroundings immediately, half expecting to find enemies waiting, but the portal chamber was empty except for the usual Tower Authority attendants who nodded at his credentials and waved him through without comment.
The walk back to their camp took longer than he remembered because the air corridors of Floor 8 twisted and reformed with the slow patience of underwater currents, and some of the landmarks he memorized shifted in his absence. But he found the path eventually, following the sense memory of walking these routes a hundred times in a life that no longer existed.
He heard Ravenna before he saw her, her voice carrying through the stone corridors with an urgency that made him quicken his pace.
