The junction opens into a service alcove beneath Dayton’s study, half archive and half dead end. Jackson’s flashlight catches fresh scuffs on the concrete, and a copied page lies on the desk above, marked with Dayton’s notes tightened into a single ruthless column. Whoever was here already knows the route.

A sharp rap answers from the ceiling seam. Dust sifts down. Then a man’s voice, low and strained, slips through the vent above, speaking Dayton’s name like a warning or a curse.

The study door upstairs creaks. A second shape crosses the frosted glass, broad shouldered and patient, while a third hand drops a black wax seal onto Dayton’s desk. The seal bears the same sign Dallas has seen on the ledger, clean as a threat and twice as deliberate.

Jackson angles the flashlight toward the stairwell, jaw tight. Above them, footsteps split, one moving for Dayton, the other for the hall. The frame closes around a single truth, the coven is hunting Dayton to bury the discovery, and Mercer is setting Jackson up as the man who opened the door.

Dallas slides the revolver free and comes up already moving, crossing the alcove in one smooth cut toward the stairwell. Jackson shifts to give him a lane, flashlight snapping toward the landing.

Above them, the broad shape at the frosted glass turns away from the study and starts for Dayton. The black seal on the desk catches the lamp glow like a warning.

Dallas reaches the lower stair and plants himself where the hallway opens, revolver leveled. The figure outside stops short, boxed in by the beam and the gun.

Jackson angles closer to Dayton’s side, while the professor pulls back from the desk with a tight, paper-white face. The copied notes lie exposed between them, and the seal sits on top like a signature.

Dallas holds the corridor in a locked stare, gun steady on the threshold. Somewhere beyond the glass, the unseen man shifts his weight, waiting for the choice to go loud.

Dallas does not lower the gun. He snaps the order across the doorway, sharp enough to cut through the study.

Professor Dayton jerks away from the desk and drops behind it, one hand diving for the pistol Jackson has pushed within reach.

Jackson shifts to block the professor’s exposed side, while the man in the hall breaks forward into the beam.

Dayton fires once from behind the desk. The shot cracks the glass, and the intruder snaps back into the landing shadow, stumbling out of the line of attack.

The hallway goes still except for a hard scrape on the floorboards beyond the door. The tampered lock catches the lamp light, half-open and ready to give.

Dallas keeps Dayton covered while Jackson moves for the landing, his flashlight low and steady. The study feels smaller with the shattered glass breathing cold air across the floor.

Jackson reaches the doorframe and leans out just enough to take the stairs in. The half-open service lock sits wrong in the jamb, proof someone has already worked it.

Dayton stays low behind the desk, pistol tight in both hands, eyes fixed on the landing. He does not rise to chase the voice, only tracks the movement it leaves behind.

Jackson checks the top stair, then the next, and finds only scuffed wood, a fresh drag mark, and the edge of a boot print turning away from the study.

From the hall comes a faint scrape, then silence. The landing is clear for the moment, but the tampered lock stands open like an invitation.

Dallas drives his boot into the tampered service door lock. The latch bursts free, and the door swings inward hard enough to slam the wall.

The shove spills a narrow service alcove into view, and a rubber stamp pad skids across the threshold. Beneath it sits a duplicate manifest bundle, folded and waiting like someone meant to come back for it.

Jackson snatches the stamp and steps through the opening, his flashlight catching a fresh line of boot prints on the stair landing. The prints stop at the inner door, where the steel edge hangs slightly open from the inside.

Dayton rises a few inches behind the desk, still keeping low, pistol trained on the hall. From the landing, the Voice in the Hallway sucks in a sharp breath, then retreats into the dark, leaving the way ahead exposed and the study officially breached.

Dallas snatches the duplicate manifest bundle off the threshold before Jackson can step back with it. The paper is warm from the hall draft, edges bent from hurried handling.

Jackson straightens with the stamp in one hand and the flashlight in the other, eyes flicking from the bundle to the ajar inner door.

From the landing, the Voice in the Hallway stumbles back a step, then freezes as a second set of boots lands somewhere below the stairwell.

The inner steel door gives a dry click and opens another inch from inside, as if something on the other side has heard them arrive.

Dallas scans the bundle in the flashlight spill. The top page is a clean duplicate manifest, but the second sheet carries a hidden routing strip and a penciled correction to Pier Nine.

Jackson leans in, the stamp hovering over the paper, as if the ink might confess something the type does not. The name list is worse than the route.

Professor Dayton goes rigid behind the desk. The cracked inner steel door opens a fraction more from inside, then stops, held by something on the other side.

On the landing, the Voice in the Hallway stifles a breath. Below the stairwell, the second set of boots turns and runs instead of advancing.

Dallas keeps the bundle low and steps toward the landing, his revolver held loose but ready. The voice above freezes on the stairs, caught between flight and reply.

The man on the landing swallows hard and comes one step closer into the spill of light, empty hands raised. The cracked steel door behind Dayton stays ajar, silent for the moment.

Jackson snaps to the cracked steel door, stamping the floor once and bringing his flashlight up to cover the seam. The man on the landing looks down, sees the line of fire, and lowers his gun.

The pistol hits the stair tread and skids to a stop near Dallas. The man raises both hands higher, edging back from the light as if the stairs themselves might accuse him.

Behind Dayton, the inner steel door stays cracked open, its dark gap unchanged, while the duplicate manifest bundle hangs open in Dallas's grip, the Jackson Temple notation still visible.

Dallas steps in and catches the man by the collar, hauling him forward hard enough to drag him into the study light.

The man stumbles into the spill from Dayton’s lamp, and his face finally shows clean. The fake badge catches the light as Dallas yanks him off balance.

Jackson holds the cracked steel door with one shoulder while the inner lock clicks again from inside, a slow metallic turn that makes the room go still.

Jackson shifts his shoulder against the steel door, and the lock answers with another dry click from inside, like a hand testing the mechanism in the dark.

Curtis swallows hard, eyes fixed on the locked seam, while the duplicate manifest lies open in Dallas’s hand and Jackson’s list, with his name on it, catches the lamp glow.

Dallas studies the maintenance key line until the print gives up its secret, a stamped code tied to a subfloor access panel, not a lock on the door above.

Jackson’s flashlight dips, and the manifest page trembles as Dallas spots a grease mark beside the key entry, a storage notation, and a time window that closes fast.

Dallas keeps the page steady while the study’s inner steel door clicks again from within the wall, louder this time, as if someone is testing the hidden mechanism with a tool.

The flashlight catches a second line under the code, a hand-copied note about a manual override, and the room feels suddenly smaller with the lock still being worked from inside.

Dallas traces the handwritten note line by line, and the cramped scrawl resolves into a procedure, not a warning. The manual override is for a bypass plate beneath the study, a maintenance cutout tied to the lockwork inside the wall.

Jackson lowers the flashlight to the page. The beam catches a second line, a storage code, and a time window that is almost gone. Curtis swallows hard near the doorway, his eyes fixed on the wall seam.

Dallas spots the note's final detail, a manual override sequence written in a different hand. Beneath the study, metal clicks twice, then stops, as if whoever is inside the wall is waiting for the right turn.

Dallas reads the sequence clean. The bypass is not armed yet, and the override can stop it now, if they move on the hidden panel before the last test completes.

Dallas drops to one knee and drives his fingers under the hidden seam. The panel gives with a dry pop, the floorboard lifting just enough to expose a black service cavity beneath the study.

Jackson snaps the flashlight down into the opening. A metal latch, a small maintenance wheel, and a cable run sit exposed under the floor, exactly where the note said they would be.

Curtis backs off from the doorway, pale as he stares at the open cutout. The steel door in the hall answers with one hard click, then goes still again.

Dallas lowers the broken panel flat beside the hole. Below the study, the bypass hardware sits ready and reachable, and the inner lock has stopped its rhythm, waiting on the next move.

Dallas twists the maintenance wheel. The cable run shudders, then catches, and the hidden mechanism answers with a muted clunk from below the floor.

Jackson keeps the flashlight fixed while Dallas turns again, slower this time. The inner steel door in the hall stops clicking altogether, as if the line has gone dead.

Curtis flinches at the sound, then stares at the floor cavity in disbelief. Somewhere in the wall, the pressure lets go with a dull release.

Dallas keeps the wheel set. The panel beneath his hand warms, and the study falls into a brief, brittle quiet, broken only by the soft rattle of the duplicate manifest bundle.

Then a hard metallic scrape rolls through the hall, followed by a thud from the steel door. The seal holds for now, but somebody on the other side has noticed the lock change.