A Divinity of Stars

The monitor still glows with Marla and Elias in custody. Thadeus rises fast, eyes sweeping the office for leverage instead of answers.

His gaze lands on the mahogany desk, the locked door, the camera cluster above Vinnie, and the heavy file cabinet beside the wall. Elizabeth shifts with him, reading the room the same way.

Vinnie stays behind the desk, trying to keep his calm. His smile thins as Thadeus steps forward and grips the polished edge.

Thadeus drives the desk sideways, forcing guards back and scattering folders across the floor. Elizabeth moves in on the opening, sharp and controlled, while Vinnie recoils toward the monitor bank.

A security panel near the door flickers under the impact. For one clear second, the lock indicators stutter, and the route out of the office becomes obvious if Thadeus can reach it before the guards recover.

Elizabeth hits the floor with Thadeus, hard and fast, while the first shots crack overhead and chew the air where they had stood.

Thadeus pulls the pen from his pocket and shuts his eyes. The blue light blooms in his hands, folds outward, and becomes a broad shield between them and the door.

The shield catches the room in a cold glow as more shots snap into it and die away, harmless.

Elizabeth shifts into cover at his back, while the guards are forced to stop firing long enough to reposition. The office is still locked down, but the line to the door is now covered.

Elizabeth explodes past the shield’s edge, all speed and teeth, and her first slash drops the nearer guard’s pistol arm before he can recover.

The weapon clatters across the carpet. The man staggers back, clutching his bleeding sleeve, eyes wide with shock.

The second guard snaps his aim toward Elizabeth, but Thadeus drives the shield forward and smashes him square in the chest.

Blue light flares against the impact. The guard folds hard into the wall and drops out cold.

Vinnie sits frozen in his chair, hands half-raised, staring at the wrecked line between the desk and the door.

For one clean beat, the path to the service entrance is open, with one guard down and the other reeling at Elizabeth’s feet.

Thadeus takes the bookkeeping folder from the wreckage before Vinnie can snatch it away. Paper slips and a broken-star stamp scatter under his hand.

His fingers find a hidden button beneath the destroyed desk. He presses it, and the office door clicks open.

Elizabeth’s hands settle back to normal at his side, and she turns with him as the dead bolt gives way.

They move out fast, leaving Vinnie behind in the ruined office as the hallway noise swells.

The door opens onto a packed dance hall, lights pulsing over bodies, while the service entrance guard is now somewhere in the crush beyond the office line.

The dance floor swallows them in neon and bass, but Thadeus keeps the blue folder tucked close. He and Elizabeth angle left, slipping with the crowd toward the bar instead of the open center.

Her hand closes around his for one quick squeeze, warm and steady, then they keep moving as if they belong there.

The bar comes into view, crowded and loud, with a narrow gap beyond it and a dim corridor mouth half hidden behind hanging glass and bottle light.

A black-suited figure near the far edge of the room turns too slowly toward the office line, then looks back into the crush as if trying to place them.

Thadeus and Elizabeth reach the edge of the bar, shoulder to shoulder, with the hallway now open in front of them and the room still trying to decide whether it has noticed.

Thadeus slows at the door and tilts his head. Through the music, he catches a low murmur, clipped and controlled, like someone asking questions they already expect answered.

Elizabeth leans in, listening hard. Her hand brushes his sleeve, and her posture tightens as the sound shifts into a harsher exchange.

Thadeus presses closer, reading the door frame and the thin seam beneath it. The voices beyond carry just enough to suggest a room, a table, and pressure.

A beat later, the corridor seems to narrow around them. The door stays shut, but the interrogation beyond it is now unmistakable, and the next move lands on Thadeus and Elizabeth.

Thadeus eases the door open on the beat, using the music to hide the scrape. Inside, the room is a hard-lit box with a table at its center, and two black-suited guards sit with their backs to the crack, still talking like the door has not moved.

Marla and Elias are cuffed behind the opposite chairs, shoulders tight, eyes flicking up the instant the gap appears. They keep their faces flat, not giving the guards a reason to look back.

Elizabeth shifts in behind him, silent and ready, while Thadeus gets the whole layout in one quick look. The side door beyond the table is unlatched, and the broken-star ring stamp sits open on a paper near the guards' hands.

One of the guards lifts a pen and taps the page, still unaware of the doorway at his back. Marla catches Thadeus's eye for a split second, then looks away before the movement can betray them.

The room has turned into an opening, not a wall. If Thadeus moves now, the service route is right there, waiting behind the table.

Thadeus drives Peacebringer forward in shield form, and the room answers with a brutal thud. Both guards slam back into the wall, chairs scraping out from under them as papers burst across the floor.

Elizabeth is already moving, crossing the room in a low rush toward Marla and Elias while the stunned guards lose their footing.

She tears the cuffs free with a sharp wrench of her hands, then catches Marla first and Elias second before either can stumble.

Marla is up, breathless but on her feet, and Elias follows a beat later, rubbing his wrists as Elizabeth steers them toward the side door.

Thadeus rises behind them, the corridor beyond the service route opening into a narrow escape lane. Behind him, the two guards are still trying to gather themselves as the broken-star paper skids under a chair.

Thadeus plants Peacebringer in the doorway and it blooms wide, metal and blue light sealing the service entrance like a sudden bulkhead. The frame groans, then holds.

The guards on the far side slam into the barrier and stop cold. Their shouts vanish behind the rising wall as the club noise thins to a muffled pulse.

Thadeus braces with both hands, shoulders shaking under the strain, keeping the barricade steady long enough for Marla to sprint for the car.

The engine catches. Marla swings the car into life while Elizabeth and Elias rush out and pile in, her hand already on the gearshift.

Thadeus rips Peacebringer free, the barrier collapsing back into a sword in his grasp. As it shrinks, the club door bursts inward once, then stays pinned by the jammed frame, buying them a clean exit.

He climbs in as Marla guns the car forward. In the glare of the taillights, the broken-star stamp lies exposed on the floor inside the doorway, plain as a name.