I held on to Vanth's neck, breathing in his scent of leather and flowers. If he thought I was clinging too tight, he didn't let it show; instead he wrapped a protective left arm around my waist.

  Cassel's secretary dropped his papers; they fluttered away with lighthearted carelessness, carpeting the stone floor. He stared at his empty hands for an instant, then backed away until he hit the wall. I was the only one looking at him, though. The dozen guards, four greensuits, and two Cassels were all focused on Vanth. And Valentino couldn't decide if he should look at me or the others.

  "The dog raises his hackles," Governor Cassel said.

  Vanth tensed under my arms, so briefly I would've missed it if I wasn't so close. "Why don't you call me a dog to Her Magnificence's face? You can do that while you're expining the mess you've made out of High Tomenedra."

  "I've nothing to expin. Call back your rioters, if you truly care about your pet."

  Vanth squeezed me harder. This time, I was the one who felt a bit too tight, but that wasn't the time to compin.

  "Governor Cassel!" Valentino's shout echoed across the raw stone walls.

  "Let him say whatever he wants," Vanth said. "He's a traitor and he's dead."

  Cassel didn't look away from him. "It's you who is the traitor."

  "I'm not arguing with you." Vanth scanned the crowd of guards and greensuits. He bared his teeth like a wild animal; at first I didn't even realize that was a grin. "Sixteen to one, then? Good odds."

  Was that a bluff? Maybe. The guards would go in for the kill; at this point, they had no other option. Vanth couldn't do the same, because they weren't necromancers. I wanted to believe that wouldn’t hold him down, but couldn’t be sure. As long as he didn't look afraid, however, I wouldn't allow myself to look afraid either.

  Valentino caught our eyes and nodded almost unnoticeably. Nobody else saw him; the guards had spread out in a semicircle, standing between the Cassels and us. Vanth tilted his head to the right; it looked as if he was simply stretching, but Valentino nodded again.

  The air tasted stale; I guess that wasn’t surprising so far from the surface, but it made an already unpleasant situation even worse. If you told me the walls were closing in around us, I would've believed you. The room was pretty rge, though those tubes had already id cim to a good chunk of it, but the mountain all around us was infinitely rger, and I couldn't forget it for a single moment. I wanted to bury my face in Vanth's hair, nothing more. Even if sixteen to two really were good odds, though, I couldn’t get in his way.

  "I have barrier spells, I'll be fine." That’s what I said, but, I didn't let go of him.

  Vanth uncoiled his arm from my waist, reluctantly. I don't know if he already suspected I lied. It's not as if I meant to—it was only after saying those words that I remembered all the barrier spells I'd brought were still in my hotel room. But that didn't change a whole lot, did it? He could handle that crowd way better on his own, and I could take care of myself.

  I backed down, allowing Vanth to stand between the guards and me. He stared at the ones on his right. Though I could tell that was a bluff, the guards seemed to fall for it, bracing themselves for the attack.

  Cassel turned to his son. "Juli, go upstairs and give the alert. Umbra and the other two must not leave the city."

  Cassel Jr hesitated.

  "Go now, I can handle them."

  Without another look back, Cassel Jr ran to the elevator. The secretary watched him go as if he was trying to remember something, then started running after him. I think the secretary caught up with Cassel Jr before the elevator doors closed, but by that point, I wasn't paying them any attention. I’d continued backing down until my back hit something hard—not a rock wall, but something smooth and slightly warm. Felt like a metal door.

  Vanth unched himself to the guards at his left, so fast it took me a moment to stop blinking at the empty pce he'd left behind and wondering where he'd gone. The guards seemed to react a bit faster, but that didn't help them much; he moved too fast for them, and just like I knew since the night we met, he was precise and even graceful. But he wasn't really a dancer. I'd thought that because I'd never seen somebody like Vanth before.

  It took me a while to realize what was so weird about him—Vanth was actually good at fighting with his body, you see, not just resorting to physically beating someone up because he didn't have another option. How strange! I'd never thought you could be good at that. Nobody would bother trying it, because it wasn’t near as good as spellwork. But Vanth could more than keep up with nine or ten spellworkers. He could pick their spells right off of the air and dispel them, and even deflect them back to the person who'd cast them, which is something I didn't think anybody could possibly do; someone got icicles to the face and hit the ground, bleeding and unmoving. Whatever were the oaths sworn by the King of the Dying Sun, they didn’t cover deflected spells at least. For the first time that day, I felt a stirring of hope.

  At the same time, Valentino had sent the guards on the right flying before they could react. All of them hit the wall on my left hard enough to make me wince, and though most of them struggled back to their feet groaning, one or two didn't.

  Then, the greensuits took a step forward. I wanted to curl up on a ball and stay very still, as if that'd be enough for them to overlook me.

  "Watch out!" I shouted instead.

  Without missing a step, the greensuits split in two groups, one turning to Vanth and the other to Valentino. That's all they ever do; they stand there and I guess stare at you, but you can't tell if that's true because they wear these rubber hoods with mesh across their eyes, and their suits are loose enough you can't even notice if they're breathing. Of course they must breathe, they're still human—they don't look much like it though.

  Valentino almost reacted in time to shove the greensuits on top of the guards still trying to stand—I'm sure that's what he was trying to do, and I cheered on him mentally, hoping my warning had given him enough time. But he still had to gather a second spell around, and the greensuits hit him first. I knew that's what happened the moment he shook all over, and I looked away, pretending I was checking out on Vanth, but of course I just didn't want to see it because I'm a coward and my mouth tasted like bile again.

  I don't know what I expected to see on Vanth's side—he'd been facing two greensuits of his own, on top of the guards who still remained standing, so you'd think he couldn't be faring much better.

  But, what was that? Vanth was still standing, too, and he'd only barely slowed down! It's not as if the greensuits weren't trying, too. Even from far away, I could see one of them had closed their gloves into tight fists—that's more effort than I'd ever seen a greensuit make. Though to be fair, I made a point of seeing as little of them as I possibly could.

  I swallowed. The taste of bile faded. I didn’t think Vanth had deflected the greensuits's spells too—they’re trained to hit you directly. But, in a way, that was an even bigger blow for them.

  There was someone greensuits couldn't hurt! No, that wasn't quite true. Vanth’s brow was shiny with sweat and tense with pain. But it was the kind of hurt that only made its victim angrier, as if a dog bit a megabeast.

  I cheered on Vanth, too, so he'd get rid of those guards and move on to beat the shit out of the greensuits next. The guards had gone on the defensive, though, focusing on keeping Vanth busy and out of reach. Looked like they hoped the greensuits would wear him down. It wasn't happening fast enough, however.

  Vanth didn't seem to need any help. What if Valentino did? I'd only looked away for a few seconds, but he was doing much worse—visibly trembling, fingers buried in his hair near the temples, looking like he was about to topple down.

  I broke a wind spell bead and sent it at the greensuits with all I had. It was a short, powerful gust; they weren't ready, and it sent them crashing against the tubes on my right. Before the greensuits could stand up, Valentino grabbed one of them and smmed his forehead right under the mesh visor, where their nose was. They fell like a sack of potatoes.

  Valentino turned to me. I couldn't hear him, but I could see his lips form the words "Some people are worse—".

  Then he colpsed on top of the greensuit.

  Cassel gred at me from behind the one remaining greensuit. He started striding in my direction.

  I turned around, searching for the knob of the door at my back. I pulled at it, then pushed; it didn't move either way. What did I have that I could use?

  Well, I was really good at peeling spells. Which is to say, at separating a yer of something away from the rest. I focused one of those spells on the tumbler inside the lock, telling it to fall apart. It didn't want to, at first; it wasn't the same thing. I was swimming against my own current. But I didn't have any time to waste. I brute-forced the spell, so hard a migraine pierced my brain like a needle. But the lock grudgingly retreated, allowing me to shove the door open.

  "Vanth, I'm going ahead!" I shouted over my back, not waiting for his answer.

  The door had opened to an impenetrable wall of darkness. I hesitated for a moment, and then, cursing myself for being such an idiot, I stepped into it. Of course it didn't sm against me; it wasn't a real wall. Even so I moved slowly, walking instead of running, because I didn't know what it could be hiding. I expected to feel Cassel's hand around my neck at any moment, so I moved to the left, sticking as close to the cave wall I could manage without scraping myself against the rock. Good thing I still wore sturdy work clothes! My hat, though, had been left somewhere on the st room's floor when Cassel lifted me up. Well, he could've crushed my windpipe like that, so I guess I'd been lucky enough.

  I still held the missing hat against him.

  As if he'd heard my thoughts, Cassel stepped on the open door, silhouetted against the warm light. He was going to send a light spell after me, I knew. And then he'd find me, because I hadn't gone very far at all.

  I stepped away, slowly but surely. What did I have? Two wind spells. Light spells? I didn't need those! Reinforcing spells? Who knew if those could be useful right then. Fire spells, never my best ones, but could work.

  The ground shook under my feet, at first so faint I thought it was my imagination, then unmistakably strong. No way that was a regur earthquake, though. It tingled over my skin like a spell.

  "Umbra!" Cassel turned around and disappeared into the room.

  I retreated as fast as I dared to go, feeling the ground ahead with one foot before every step. The air was still stuffy enough it wasn't likely I faced a chasm or something—but even a minor fall can leave you with a sprained ankle or broken leg, as I'd learned the hard way as a child. This wasn't the time to take risks.

  But I also couldn't afford to dawdle. King of the Dying Sun or not, Vanth couldn't keep that up much longer. The earth isn't a dog you can send to attack your enemies whenever you feel like it. It's much bigger and powerful than any of us, and I wasn't going to forget it when I was buried so far from the surface.

  Except—the Tipilej-tepuy didn't really seem to like Cassel, did it?

  That didn't feel reassuring. I couldn't understand a mountain's thoughts—assuming mountains can be said to have them. What I did know is that another mountain had been destroyed many years ago by another human—one of my distant retives.

  Humans still remembered. Why wouldn't a mountain remember?

  I forced myself to come back to the present. Now more than ever, I couldn't let my mind wander. The ground had stilled, though I couldn't tell if that was because Vanth's spell had stopped or because I'd moved away from its reach. I couldn't see the dim glow from that room anymore. Maybe that was because I'd turned a corner somewhere. Assuming caves can be said to have corners. That tunnel was very much a product of nature, uneven and rough. At points, even I had to mind my head. Valentino wouldn’t find it easy to follow me, and Vanth even less so—but they'd come after me. They would.

  Anyway, it was clear the previous room and the tunnel leading to the elevator had started out as a part of this cave, but Cassel, or his mother, or even someone else, had expanded on them. I knew very little about geology, but I was pretty sure an underground river had hollowed that tunnel out literal ages ago.

  That reminded me of the mountainside map. If I wasn't wrong, and it did show an underground river that hadn't dried out, I might be able to find it.

  Warm sweat fell on my eyes, so I wiped it with my sleeve. Vanth would come after me, and he’d find me because I still had the neckce. Hopefully he didn’t need my help. I was used to making decisions in a split second, but that didn't mean I never second-guessed myself. Allowing Cassel to recapture me would've been a terrible choice, though—Vanth was better off without me, though I worried about Valentino.

  The worst part is I didn't really think Cassel had lost his mind. No, I was pretty sure he genuinely thought the Megarchon wouldn't care if I died, not once she knew what was going on. He was desperate, but that didn't make him any less convinced of having found out the truth.

  Despite my attempts at distracting myself by thinking about Cassel, I kept coming back to the eternity of unbroken darkness around me. To think the abandoned Khachimik temple had felt oppressive! The mountain over my head was so immense I couldn't even begin to imagine it. If only I could run into open ground and see the sky rising over my head and feel the sun in my face! Spend enough time down there, and you could start doubting those things are real.

  At first I thought the glow ahead was just in my mind, like when you press on your eyelids. After a careful look, though, I was sure it had to be real. It shined green and cold like creatures with a light of their own do. Like fireflies. They’re harmless. All I could think of, though, was that this creature didn't mind being so clearly visible among all that darkness. It was as if it wanted you to see it. To attract its prey?

  broccolifloret