The next chamber loved the sound of its own voice. The moment we stepped through the door, the quiet ended. Shadows of a dense crowd slid across the walls, a silent stampede of ghosts from a train station at rush hour. The sound of a thousand echoing footsteps came from nowhere in particular. A polite, disembodied speaker system, like one from a pristine mall, tried to put verbs in my bones.
"HALT," the air said with cheerful authority.
"SUBMIT," it added warmly.
"KNEEL," it suggested, as if we were discussing appetizers.
Valeria huffed, a sharp, indignant note in my mind. "Ask me to kneel one more time and I will chip a tile out of pure spite."
Erebus brushed the pact-line, his presence a sliver of cold, hard logic. 'Posture.'
