The stillness in the Inner Sanctum was suffocating. We had been in the vault for four hours, and the pulsing blue-white glow of the quartz clusters was beginning to feel like a countdown.
Silas was a creature of kinetic energy; the forced inactivity was weighing on him. He paced the silver-lined floor, his presence so massive it shrank the cavernous room. Though in human form, the wolf was close to the surface; his fingers were elongated, his claws scraping against the smooth obsidian slab where I sat.
"They should be here by now," he growled, stopping to listen. "Unless Kaelin neutralized them in the upper tunnels."
I shook my head, my fingers tracing the bone handle of the dagger in my lap. The raw silver down here was a constant hum in my veins—a cold, precise strength. "No. The Shad
