Chapter 885 The Substitution

• Behind Seraphina, a crude launcher had already been rigged atop a dented trash can, and she was in the midst of assembling a second trap. Her hands never wavered—what seemed like deliberate slowness was, in truth, a blur of practiced efficiency.
• The narrow U-shaped corridor betrayed her hunters: bootfalls clattered in from both ends, the echo swelling until it seemed the walls themselves were closing in. Tiny beads of perspiration broke across her brow. One drop strayed down the line of her hair, slid off, and struck the back of her hand like a pinprick.
• The mechanism clicked into readiness, but she wasted no sigh of relief—her enemies were already breathing down her neck. In one swift move, she stepped onto the trash can, vaulted upward, and caught hold of the ventilation shaft above. Two slender wires stretched from her fingers, faint as spider silk, as she hauled herself into the shadows overhead.