There was no one at the right door. I stood around the corner for a full minute, but the guards never showed up. A sense of the wrongness of what was happening made me doubt. The shadow was completely exhausted and now hung on my chest like a useless weight.

I felt the presence of an alien darkness nearby, a pleasant, feminine darkness, which, unlike male power, did not make me feel like a sticky web. She rounded the corner and rushed to the door, which was heavy but unlocked. Excellent! You don't have to open the lock. Behind the door was found a narrow staircase going deep into the...