The beam overhead cracked, loud as bone.
Dust sifted down in a thin veil. The air changed, sharp with dry rot and heat. For a heartbeat, the lane held its shape, a tight throat of stone and smoke, and then the roof began to move.
Not all at once.
First a sag. Then a groan. Then the decisive snap as weight found the weak point Gray had prepared.
The Master did not look up.
He did not need to.
He felt structure the way a man felt a knife near skin.
His hand lifted higher.
The lane tightened.
Doors along the walls slammed shut in sequence, not from wind, but from command. The pressure around Gray's ribs increased, firm and clinical, like invisible hands measuring how much he could be bent before breaking.
Gray's knees dipped again.
Just enough.
A performance of weakening.
The Master stepped forward, calm, and the two Awakened guards flanking him shifted into motion. One let a coil of chain slide into his palm like a living thing. The other raised his crossbow, but the crossbow looked like a habit, not a necessity.
At the far end of the lane, the first creature leapt in.
It did not rush blindly.
It paused on the threshold, crouched low, head tilted, tasting the air. Its eyes were not animal eyes. They were too focused. It watched the Master's stance, watched the guards, watched Gray's half kneel.
Then it moved.
Fast.
It sprang toward the flanking guard with the chain.
The chain snapped out and wrapped around its neck.
For a moment, it looked like a clean capture.
Then the creature twisted its body in a way that should have broken spine and turned the pull into a step, using the chain's tension to fling itself sideways. Its claws carved sparks off stone. It landed behind the guard's shoulder, not striking yet, only repositioning.
The guard's expression changed.
Not fear.
Realization.
A second creature slid in low, aiming for the ankles. A third climbed the wall, finding holds where there should have been none. A fourth stayed outside the lane, just beyond the mouth of fire, watching, waiting, learning.
They were arriving as a unit.
They were probing the net.
Gray felt the pressure on his ribs tighten again as the Master tried to keep the lane sealed while the situation evolved inside it.
Lockwarden.
He could close lanes.
He could close distance.
But closing was not the same as killing.
Killing required time.
Time required stability.
The roof groaned again, louder now.
The Master's eyes flicked upward for the first time.
A fraction.
Enough.
Gray moved.
He did not lunge. He did not sprint. He simply stepped into the exact sliver of loosened pressure created by that glance. His body turned sideways, reducing the surface the invisible grip could seize. His bound posture made him look smaller than he was.
He slid toward the wall.
The pressure tried to follow and the lane tightened in response, but the Master's attention had already been divided. The creatures were not charging him directly. They were forcing him to spend focus on his flank.
Gray's fingers brushed the stone and found the smear of oil he had left.
The ember that had caught it was now a thin line of flame crawling along the gutter.
Fire was building behind the Master.
A wall of heat sealing the lane from the outside world.
No retreat.
No reinforcement.
No escape.
The Master understood.
He did not shout.
He did not curse.
He simply spoke one word.
"Open."
A door on the left slammed inward, not breaking, but unlatching as if it had always been meant to yield to him. A clean exit route appeared, carved into the lane by authority.
Gray's eyes remained neutral.
So the Master could open as well as close.
Useful.
The creature on the wall dropped.
It fell not onto the Master, but onto the guard with the crossbow. The guard tried to raise his weapon and the creature's claw went through the wood stock like paper. The crossbow snapped. The guard's wrist bent wrong.
He screamed.
The chain guard yanked hard, trying to pull the first creature off balance.
The creature let itself be pulled.
It used the tension to spin.
Its claws raked the chain guard's forearm and blood sprayed across stone, bright in lanternlight. The guard staggered back. The chain slackened.
The first creature darted forward at that slack moment and bit.
Not the throat.
The hand.
It tore fingers away in one savage jerk.
The chain fell.
The guard's scream went high and thin.
The Master's head turned toward his flanking guard, toward the loss of control.
And in that heartbeat, the roof finally decided.
The beam broke completely.
Timber dropped.
A burning section of ceiling crashed down between Gray and the Master, exploding into sparks. The impact sent a burst of ash into the air, a thick cloud that swallowed lanternlight and turned the lane into a moving shadow.
The Master reacted instantly.
His hand snapped up.
The falling timber slowed mid drop, not stopping, but shifting trajectory just enough to avoid crushing him. The air around him thickened, supporting weight like invisible pillars.
Master.
Authority.
Gray did not stand in awe.
He watched the cost.
The Master's jaw tightened.
A line of sweat appeared at his temple.
Holding a roof was not effortless.
It was a tax on focus.
And focus was the currency the creatures were trying to drain.
Gray used the ash cloud.
He moved through it low, silent, not running, but sliding from one patch of darkness to the next. He did not strike the Master. He did not need to.
He reached the door the Master had opened.
He stepped through.
The door led into a narrow interior corridor of the timber building, filled with smoke and heat. The floor was slick with oil, the walls blackened. Somewhere above, fire chewed steadily, following the loops he had drawn earlier. The building was burning from within like a patient fever.
Behind him, the Master stepped toward the doorway.
The creatures shifted.
Two of them lunged at the opening, not at Gray, but at the Master's path.
They were not mindless.
They were cutting off the authority.
The Master's gaze sharpened.
His voice remained calm.
"Back."
The air slammed down.
The creatures that had lunged froze for a fraction of a second as if their joints had been told no. Then they twisted, fighting the constraint with sheer alien strength, and the constraint began to fray.
The Master's control was not absolute.
It was negotiated.
Gray moved deeper into the corridor.
Heat pressed against his face. Smoke stung his eyes. The building's bones creaked as fire weakened supports. He moved as if he had lived here for years, because he had already mapped the structure with oil and fire.
He had planted this.
He had chosen this.
He had turned the chase into a tunnel.
A throat.
The corridor forked.
Gray took the left path, not because it was safer, but because he knew where it ended.
In a storage room full of sacks and crates.
Dry goods.
Grain dust.
Old cloth.
Fuel.
He slammed the door behind him, not to lock it, but to create a moment.
He pulled a sack open and flung the fine dust into the air.
A pale cloud blossomed.
He could hear movement in the corridor.
Heavy steps.
Measured.
The Master was coming.
Not rushing.
He did not need to.
The building was already closing its own options.
Gray grabbed a lantern from a shelf and held it low. The flame inside trembled in the stale air.
He listened.
The corridor fell quiet.
Not empty.
Quiet.
The kind of quiet a predator chose before striking.
The door handle moved.
Slowly.
The Master's voice came through the wood, calm and close.
"You planned this."
Gray did not answer.
Answers were gifts.
The door opened.
Smoke rolled in, thick and gray, followed by the Master's silhouette. The half iron mask caught lanternlight. His eyes took in the room in a single sweep. Dust hanging in the air. Open sack. Lantern in Gray's hand.
Understanding flashed, immediate and cold.
The Master's hand lifted.
The air in the room tightened, trying to crush the lantern flame, trying to squeeze the dust cloud down, trying to deny ignition.
Gray did not fight the pressure.
He threw the lantern.
Not at the Master.
At the floor.
Glass shattered.
Oil that had soaked into the wood from earlier smears caught instantly.
The flame met the grain dust.
Light bloomed.
Not a flame.
An explosion.
The room became white for a heartbeat, then orange, then a roaring wall.
The Master staggered half a step.
Even he was forced to blink.
That blink cost him.
Outside the room, a creature screamed and slammed into the corridor wall as heat surged. Another creature shrieked in response. Their cries were not only pain. They were signals.
Gray used the blink.
He moved under the Master's arm, low, shoulder brushing cloth, and slipped past into the corridor. The air tried to seize him again, but the Master's focus was split between flame, structural collapse, and the creatures pressing closer.
Gray ran now.
Not away.
Through.
The corridor ended in a narrow stairwell leading up.
He climbed.
Smoke poured upward, but he kept low, breathing through cloth. His shoulder burned. His ribs ached. He did not slow.
He reached the upper level.
The roof above was already burning, beams blackened, embers dropping like slow rain.
Below, the Master's voice snapped for the first time.
"Seal him."
The building responded.
A door ahead slammed shut.
The passage to the roof narrowed, as if space itself was resisting.
Gray stopped.
Not because he was trapped.
Because the trap had matured.
He touched the wall with his palm, leaving another smear of oil where his sleeve had been prepared for it.
Behind him, the stairwell shook as something heavy hit it.
A creature was climbing.
Two.
Their claws scraped wood. Their screams were close now, hungry and bright.
Ahead, the sealed door began to tremble as the Master approached from below, authority climbing with him.
Gray stood between them.
A man in a burning throat, pursued by a Master and hunted by creatures that learned.
He should have been desperate.
He was not.
This position was not a mistake.
It was an overlap.
He had forced both predators into the same corridor because predators hated sharing.
The sealed door ahead creaked.
The Master's will pressed harder, trying to turn the building into a coffin for Gray alone.
Gray waited.
He counted heartbeats.
One.
Two.
Three.
On the third, the roof above cracked again.
A load point failed.
A beam fell.
Not into the room below where the Master could deflect it cleanly.
Into the stairwell.
It landed with fire and weight directly onto the climbing creatures, snapping wood, blocking the narrow passage, pinning bodies that did not die quickly enough to stop screaming.
Their screams became louder.
Sharper.
They echoed through the building like a call.
Outside, in the streets, more cries answered.
The city was hearing them.
The city was coming.
The Master halted below.
Gray felt it.
A pause in the tightening pressure.
Not fear.
Calculation.
Lockwarden was measuring a new problem. Creatures were not citizens. They did not obey. They did not bargain.
The Master's control had meaning only inside rules.
These things did not respect rules.
Gray used the pause.
He kicked the sealed door once, hard, not to break it, but to shift its frame. The oil smear caught a stray ember and flame crawled along the edges.
The door's wood expanded under heat.
The latch warped.
It opened itself.
Gray slipped through onto the roof.
Wind hit him, cold and full of ash. The city below was a lattice of lanterns and smoke and moving shapes. Streets were erupting with screams. Fires spread. Creatures poured through cracks in stone like dark water.
The Master stepped onto the roof behind him, slower now, his coat singed at the edges. Smoke clung to him but would not settle. His eyes were hard.
Gray did not run.
He turned and faced him.
The Master's voice was low.
"You will die here."
Gray looked past him, not at the Master, but at the streets where creatures were surging, where guards were breaking, where the city's order was dissolving into pure panic.
He spoke softly, almost conversational.
"Not here."
He stepped back toward the roof's edge.
Below, a narrow lane funnelled refugees into a choke point. Guards tried to hold a line. Creatures circled, testing.
Gray had watched that lane on the way to the platform. He had counted its corners. He had marked the gutters.
He had marked everything.
He raised his hand and let a small object fall from his sleeve.
A shard of iron, smeared with oil.
It struck the gutter below and sparked.
Flame ran down the lane like a drawn line.
It cut the choke point in half.
People screamed and pushed and fell.
The line broke.
Creatures surged into the breach.
The Master's gaze snapped toward the lane, involuntary.
And in that instant, Gray jumped.
Not into the street.
Onto a lower roof, then another, using the chaos below as his net. He moved fast and low, disappearing into smoke and flame.
Behind him, the Master turned back, too late to catch him, forced to choose between chasing a single man and holding a city that was being eaten alive.
Gray did not give him time to decide.
He vanished into the burning maze, already shaping the next collision.
Because this was only the opening.
The city had not yet understood what kind of predator it had invited in.