THE HEIRESS THEY BURRIED
The hatch stood open exactly the way he'd known, somewhere in the back of his mind, it eventually would, not because he'd forced it, not because his key had ever mattered as much as he'd once believed, but because the people who mattered had already walked through ahead of him.
Exactly as Jonathan had designed.
A faint, unhurried smile crossed Edmund's face.
"Lead the way," he murmured, to no one, to the dark opening ahead of him, and started down the stairs alone.
Below, gathered around the glowing terminal, the group was still studying the directory when the sound came.
A deep, mechanical groan, echoing from somewhere behind them.
Everyone turned at once.
The massive steel doors they'd pas