They held on the landing for ninety seconds.
Not because they needed to. Because Thomas needed every person in the stairwell to have the same information before the door opened, and passing information through twenty-three people in a fire stairwell required ninety seconds if you were efficient about it, which Thomas was.
The demon queen was awake and aware of them.
The tether was shorter than expected — she was in Victor's room and could not move significantly from it, which meant the third floor was the only floor that mattered and the approach to it was the only approach.
Courtney had the resonance reading. Mrs. Tempest had the spell. Together they were the instrument that closed the channel — but using them required proximity to the anchor, which meant proximity to the demon queen, which meant the third floor and the room at the end of the east corridor and whatever the demon queen had become in the weeks since Victor's incomplete revival had given her a foothold in the world.
The patrol had been redirected.
Samantha confirmed it — the air of the building had changed, the facility's security responding to whatever the demon queen's awakening had done to the building's atmosphere. They were moving toward the third floor from the outside, the exterior stairwells, converging on Victor's position the way guards converged when the thing they were protecting signaled distress.
"They're protecting her," Jasper said.
"They're protecting Victor," William said. "They don't know about her. To them she doesn't exist — she's not in any record, not in any briefing. Victor has kept her entirely separate from his operational staff." He paused. "They're responding to a facility breach. To us."
"Which means they'll hit the third floor at the same time we do," Dean said.
"Yes," Thomas said. "Which is why we move now and not after."
He looked at the group.
All twenty-three of them, in the stairwell, the particular compressed readiness of a group that had found each other in the facility and had the full picture now and was standing at the last door before everything they had come to do.
Thomas looked at Katherine.
Katherine looked at the door.
The dark element was cycling fast now, the combat spiral, responding to the presence above them that was responding to it in return — the specific call and answer of two old things that recognized each other across the distance of a floor and a door and three hundred years and whatever the demon queen's age was, which was older than any of them had a number for.
She felt the group behind her.
All of them.
The twin bond warm at her left — Carlyle, present and steady and the water element cycling alongside her dark element the way it had cycled alongside it their entire lives.
Fenix at her right — the fire signal, warm and precise, the particular heat of someone who had not been alone in their power for long but had learned fast what it meant to have people in the same direction.
Courtney with the Blood Magic reading the anchor through the floor.
Niall with the earth element in the building's bones.
Kristen at angles.
Jasper reading the structure.
Grace holding everything steady.
Samantha in the air itself.
Thomas and Dean and Tierney and Emmet — the generation before, the people who had been in this work since before the chosen ones had known what they were, present and ready and the specific backbone of a group that had a backbone because these people were in it.
William. The Tempests. The people who had made the last year possible.
All of them.
Here.
Katherine put her hand on the door.
Above it, on the other side of it, the demon queen was awake and looking and building toward the seven ends she had been building toward since before the Glass line had known she existed.
She had been waiting for a very long time.
She was done waiting.
Katherine pushed the door open.
So were they.