The voice from the stairwell was old, roughened by age and disuse, but it carried in the chamber with a clarity that made the hair at the back of Fang's neck rise.
"I see you have found it at last."
Ren did not move.
Neither did Pax.
Only Fang's eyes shifted, tracking the top of the stairwell where the darkness thickened around the speaker's silhouette. The air had gone even colder, and the suspended crystal at the centre of the chamber gave one slow, uneasy pulse, as though something inside it had just stirred in recognition.
Pax's hand went instantly to the communicator at his belt.
Ren, without turning his head, said quietly, "Do not call anyone yet."
Pax's jaw tightened. "You have got to be joking."
"I am not."
"There is a hidden chamber beneath your institute, a sealed core full of things no decent building ought to contain, and now an elderly man appears out of the dark and says he has been waiting for us. You want me to hold off on calling security?"
