Chapter 44: The Whole Sentence

The inner door had no handle on its inside face. Evan found that out with his palm, one shoe on, one foot bleeding, while Nathan put the key away. The room beyond door three was round. Iron ribs climbed the walls and met above a blue pipe that came down through the ceiling. Under the pipe stood a waist-high basin of water, its rim crusted with orange paste. Nathan locked them in. Water hit the other side of the door hard enough to shake grit from the ceiling. "It is the strongest chamber," Nathan said. "Against Su?" "Against what follows her." The pipe knocked. Water jumped the basin rim and ran across the floor in branching lines, and each line stopped at the iron circle set into the concrete around Evan's feet. Su's heartbeat pounded under his own, fast and ragged, with too much effort behind every beat. Okay. Okay.…