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"Bomb!" a man near them screamed "The floor is lined with boreat hall Earsplitting shrieks rent the air, while the crowd staed toward the entrance and exit doors As Pandora stood there, stunned, Dragon leapt up and pulled her into the lee of his body, shielding her fro trampled

"Where is Lord St Vincent?" she asked "Can you see hion’s reply above the roar

As the fear-maddened crowd pushed, jostled, and elbowed its way toward the doors, Pandora huddled against him In a minute she felt Gabriel’s arms close around her, and she turned toward him blindly Without a word, he picked her up and carried her to the side of the rooainst them

The three of them reached the shelter of an inset arch, and Gabriel lowered Pandora’s feet to the ground She clutched the lapels of his coat and looked up at him desperately

"Gabriel, we have to leave here now"

"It’s all right"

"It’s not all right," she insisted "There are bombs beneath the floor, lined up like sardines in a tin A tin that’s going to explode into ainto his pocket, Gabriel pulled out a peculiar objectsome kind of clockwork e "I found this beneath a loose plank behind the dais"

"What is that?"

"An alarm mechanism with a strike bar attached to a detonator cap It was set to explode the charge"

"But it won’t now?" Pandora asked worriedly

"Not since I tore it off a row of cylinder boon "The crowd is thinning near the north wall exit Let’s go Make certain no one slaainst her"

"I’ jostled," Pandora said, tugging at hion on her other side, they went through a doorway to a yard at the back of the hall that opened to Basinghall Street Pandora felt ith relief when they finally reached the cool open air They stopped in the partial shelter of a bankruptcy court building

Pandened outside as a sea of hurounds People dashed every which way in panic Mounted Coldstreaes, and horses arrived in a cla police signaled to each other Standing with her head against Gabriel’s chest, Pandora felt the reverberations of his voice as he asked, "Did you lose Prescott?"

She turned to see Ethan Ranso, as if an electric current were on handed him the clockwork mechanis it as he replied