The ventilation shaft brought us out on the twenty-second level.
Beyond the grille lay a bond laboratory with white corridors, golden lines set into the floor and operating tables. The shadows of beasts moved behind transparent walls.
The injured captain waited on a pipe. He could fly on. We could not.
Leon held the ring to the door. The panel recognised the family, then requested Kane's confirmation. The son's old access had already been revoked.
"Move," Lily said.
She removed the panel cover and connected the scorched page of my contract. The collateral seal classified me as Li family property and therefore carried the right to enter the laboratory for confiscated beasts.
The debt created to seize Styx opened the way to her.
The door slid apart.
Inside, the air smelt of medicine and ozone. A diagram of the Crown of the Bond glowed on the wall. The shard of the titanic core powered only a small part of the control circuit, so Kane had connected it to the city's power grid. Energy flowed to the Void Dragon's laboratory below and the queen's chamber above.
They were holding Styx above us.
"We split up," Cole said. "Lily and Mira go to the control node. Leon goes down for the dragon. Rex and I go up."
Leon hesitated.
"If Kane activates the Crown, it can't transmit the signal without the dragon."
"Then don't let him use the beast."
"What if the collar is already stronger than I am?"
I remembered Styx refusing to attack.
"Ask the dragon if he wants to go with you."
Leon started to object, thought better of it and left for the lift.
We climbed the service stairs, where fighters without beasts of their own guarded every landing. Cole took down the operators while I used the pulse transmitter. The blood rhythm disrupted the artificial control circuits for a few seconds, giving the soldiers time to tear the wires from their necks.
One of the freed men pointed to the upper door.
"The patriarch is in there. He's talking to the queen."
Beyond the door lay a round, windowless chamber. Styx's cage hung at the centre of a golden structure. Tanks of blood and nutrient solution stood around it, with slender tubes leading to egg collectors.
Kane did not merely want to subdue Styx.
He meant to force her to create a swarm that would belong to him from birth.
Styx lay at the bottom of the cage, her six wings pinned by rings. White lines from the external control circuit burned across her carapace.
Kane stood beside her without guards.
"You came after all," he said. "Even without an army."
"Let her go."
"Why? You used the queen yourself to produce soldiers. I merely offer better conditions: limitless food, a protected nest and a purpose worthy of her species."
Kane touched the panel. Warm blood rose through the tanks.
Styx moved.
"She doesn't need you, Rex. She needs a swarm. You were simply her first source of food."
I raised the pulse transmitter and activated the rhythm she had heard inside the egg.
Styx opened her eyes.
Kane smiled.
"Then let's ask her."
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