The smell of burning oak parchment drifted down through the iron ventilation grate, thick, bitter, and heavy with ash.
Above the basement vault, the ground floor of the Highfield County Registry Office was already gutting itself in orange flames. Arthur Vance-Cross's mercenaries had done their work with systematic precision, dousing the wooden record racks in kerosene before locking the heavy oak street doors from the outside.
Down in the sub-vault, thirty feet beneath the granite foundations, the temperature was rising rapidly.
Prince Bastian stood at the foot of the narrow stone stairs, his heavy lever-action rifle leveled at the heavy reinforced trapdoor above. Smoke rolled through the cracks in thin, gray fingers, catching in the beam of the brass oil lantern held by Sarah.
