Last Elana checked, the uzhas vault hadn’t included a chasm. And certainly not one big enough to swallow a city.

  Nor one filled with writhing uzhas.

  Elana pursed her lips as she eyed the gaping hole before her. The cobalt glow from the uzhas lit the coarse ceiling, creating a million stars from the crystal that laced the rock. She slowly turned a full circle. Behind her, a tunnel disappeared into the black while she stood on a narrow ledge that, as far as she could see, circled the chasm. The cavern itself was devoid of any smell.

  Elena inched up to the precipice and peered over the edge. The ground vanished into the uzhas ten feet below.

  No. Definitely not in the uzhas vault, or anywhere within the Alchemist Guild. Or, she doubted, even within Kosgrad’s city limits. She backed away from the edge.

  So where in Serovnya was she?

  More importantly, how did she get here? She’d taken the telepathy extract, which hurt—a lot—and the extract had shown her the minds of everyone in the Guild as grey, misty blobs. Then she’d gone to the uzhas vault.

  Elana’s eyes widened. Of course, testing the extract on the uzhas. Had it driven her mad? Was she dead? This place wasn’t exactly her idea of a fun afterlife.

  The uzhas rose from the chamber and coalesced into a giant… face? It was roughly human in shape and had three narrow slits for a nose. The face also had four eyes, two beside the nose—where eyes belong—and two on the temples. No trace of hair marred its smooth skin, and its ears were normal… except for the massive lobes that hung lower than its jaw.

  Yup. Definitely mad.

  Help me, a flat, genderless voice whispered, the words echoing silently around the cavern.

  Elana frowned, the face’s mouth hadn’t moved.

  The face morphed and Elana stared at a familiar scene. An Alchemist sculptor stood in a chamber filled with uzhas and sculpted the gas before her into a steam engine. Then she severed contact with the uzhas.

  A wave of pain slammed into Elana’s mind as the uzhas steam engine froze into a glossy, black mass of uzhasgart.

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  Help me, the voice repeated.

  Air roared into the yawning mouth of the chasm and the uzhas dissipated, swallowed by the darkness.

  HELP M—

  The cavern disappeared with jarring finality, replaced by an empty sculpting chamber in the uzhas vault. Uzhas no longer swirled around Elana’s boots, only bare concrete lay beneath her feet.

  The door rumbled open and Sofia appeared, almost looking concerned.

  Elana swayed, blinking. “What the depths just happened?”

  “You tell me,” Sofia said. “One moment uzhas is pooled at your feet, the next it’s encased you. You just stood there, frozen, so I purged the chamber.”

  Elana pressed her palms into her temples. That couldn’t have been the uzhas speaking to her, it must have been a hallucination. “Well, I think the telepathy extract gave me some kind of connection with the uzhas.”

  “Test it further.”

  “No.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Elana lowered her hands and fixed a—hopefully—steely gaze on Sofia. “I’m done. I made the extract, and it does… something. Now take it to Voronin Master. A sculptor needs to complete the testing because I won’t have a clue if it’s working or not.”

  Sofia made no move to follow Elana as she stomped out of the chamber and headed to the vault’s exit.

  A guard saw her approaching and looked over her shoulder. Elana glanced back, Sofia stood just outside the chamber and nodded to the guard. The guard signalled through a small glass window by the door and the vault door rolled open. Elana swept through, not daring to stop. With every step away from the cursed place, her hearts slowed. She rounded a corner, slumped against the wall, and closed her eyes.

  Every muscle in her body trembled, and she clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from rattling. What in the depths had she seen in that chamber? It had to be a hallucination, and it was Sofia’s fault. If Sofia hadn’t been a coward and had just tested it herself, nothing would have happened. As a sculptor, Sofia knew how to handle the uzhas, she wouldn’t have seen crazy visions, right?

  Elana ran a hand through her white hair. The only reason she’d undertaken the extract in the first place was to help sculptors. She hadn’t agreed to slave for two years in secrecy only to have uzhas drive her insane. Oh well, she was finished. Sofia would report to Voronin—doubtless painting her in a terrible light—and Voronin would assign the testing to someone else and, most likely, blank the last two years of Elana’s memory. The thought didn’t bother her, she’d gladly forget those two years and return to her family.

  It suddenly struck her that she’d been let go without a guard.

  No guard… no escort! I’m free! She caught sight of her still shaking hands and a smile quirked her lips. “I have just the thing to help calm you…”

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