The tile did not unlock. That would have been too easy, and nothing about my life has ever been easy.
Instead reality peeled.
A seam ran out from the Key in a line about four feet long, and the floor on either side of that line stopped agreeing with itself. Left side stayed tile. Right side became a stairwell that had absolutely not been there a second earlier, going down at an angle that made my eyes water because it was going down in a direction that had no business existing in a building.
"Oh, I hate that," Jacob said in my ear. "I hate that so much. The sensor feed just recorded a floor appearing. I am editing that out. I am editing that out right now, please give me nine seconds."
"Nine seconds," Isabelle said, calm as a woman ordering tea. "Thirty-nine minutes remaining on your clock, Nakano."
I put the Key away. It had gone cold in my hand, spent for another seven days, and if this went badly it meant we were walking out through concrete or not at all.
