The warehouse door sulked behind a rusted chain and a padlock that had survived better days. The brass key turned like it had been waiting. Inside, dust motes drifted like plankton in weak sun.
A boarded room squatted in the corner—new wood in an old body. Behind its small lock lay a steel-lined chamber and a bolted chest with a circular groove on the lid, the exact size of Rowan’s medallion.
He didn’t breathe until the medallion settled into the slot as though it remembered where it belonged. He didn’t move because footsteps echoed from the far end of the hall.
Two flashlights carved the dark. Voices said his name like a sentence. He slipped through a gap in the wall and ran until the night let him go.
