The portcullis was already dropping.
Finn and Ronan hit the narrowing entrance and forced it — Ronan's shield under the descending gate for one brutal second, Finn hauling him through — and one of James's skeletons scraped into the passage with them, slipping past the defenders before their shield line finished forming inside.
The portcullis boomed down behind them. James was still in the courtyard.
He watched through the grate: Finn and Ronan against a formed line in a stone corridor, and his skeleton standing loose behind that line, where it had wandered past men who hadn't counted it a threat.
There's my door.
[GRAVE STEP ACTIVATED]
The courtyard folded away, and James arrived behind the Crown line — and the arrival cost him what it always cost, one second of the world sitting wrong, his balance arguing with his eyes.
The nearest guards were veterans. They saw the stagger and came at it.
