The roof was big enough for a bad dream. Brass ribs framed a pale, fake sky, and the miasma rose and fell like the flank of a sleeping, venomous animal. Dust sifted from the sagging ceiling. Under my boots, Lucifer's lines of gold had thinned to threads.
"Fifteen seconds," Lucifer said from the rim.
The Archduke didn't rush. He trimmed my space the way a patient butcher trims fat, one careful, irreversible cut after another. A thin veil slid across the lane my hips liked. An after-blade waited half a step behind my shoulder.
