The pressure door had a window the size of Eli’s palm.
Its glass was clouded from within. A narrow crescent remained clear near the top, too high to show the floor beyond it. Below the window, a wheel handle sat inside a painted circle. Someone had scratched an arrow beside the official direction of opening. The two arrows disagreed.
Mira stopped at the edge of the nearest floor tile.
“This one,” she said.
The guard who had brought them down looked at the number above the frame. “That’s the room.”
Eli could see Mira looking past the present door to something he could not. Her hands had curled inward, the thumb of one rubbing the nail of the other. The first time he had watched her react that way, he had thought it calculation. He knew now that fear could look like a person concealing an answer.
He waited until Juno had taken the guard aside to ask about the gauges before speaking quietly.
“Is there a safe route through?”
