For once, Clarisse doesn't have her spear with her—it would have made them way, way too noticeable while they waited—but she has a short sword and, if necessary, a knife strapped to one leg that she can use as a sidearm. Now that they're on the move, it's all business.

She returns Katia's nod, pulls the mask up over her face, and follows the trio through the jagged opening that used to be a doorway. Thick smoke obscures her vision, but that's just as well, since any arriving guards will be as blind as she is for the time being.

And sure enough, she can hear shouting, running, as guardsmen are drawn first to the boom of the door blasting off its hinges and then to the sound of the shrieking alarms. The interior door rattles and swings open, and the first guard enters, sword at the ready. He takes a deep breath of the noxious air inside the chamber, coughs once, and abruptly halts in place, his mouth gaping open, eyes wide. If Clarisse didn't know better, she'd think he was in shock over the state of the wall opposite him.

A second guard all but runs into his back trying to get through the doorway, shouts, "Move aside!" only to have his fellow turn and swing a closed fist right into the side of his face.

Clarisse laughs, delighted, though she's pretty sure no one hears her over the sound of the alarms going off. This is going to be fun.