The rest of the Macazi buzz around, tidying and organizing. A whole world in motion. With the food line so long, Willa leads me around the perimeter to depart. Some of those we pass sharpen blades, fashioning metal to sticks, forging armor out of dried hide and thin sheets of lead. We pass an assembly line of people working on a giant boulder, hollowing it out with sharp tools. A man with sun-scorched Gray skin sets a stack of first-aid supplies inside the rock’s hollowed center before handing it to a crew on his right. The crew bolts the bottom with planks of wood and they set it beside a stack of twenty or more others before grabbing another. The rocks would blend right in with landscaping. No one would know there’s first-aid supplies inside. Smart.

I guess that’s how they help whoever they’re sending out there to fight against the Chancellor, people like Grag. Their operation is well organized. The toppled statues, burned buildings, the evidence that someone is giving the Chancellor a run for his money, is all here. I’d suspected it was them, but to see how intricately organized and prepared they are up close is something else.

Taavi’s got a job on her hands down here. They’re an entire world living under the Chancellor’s nose. He killed Totsi. If he knew the Macazi were down here, even minding their own business, no doubt he’d kill them, too.

Willa moves faster down the dank corridor than I’d think even possible on her frail legs, and I hustle to catch up. The walk is short from my room to the kostarum. I crane for some semblance of how to get out of here, but the pathway just curves up ahead with no sign or indication where it leads. I wonder if Bri and Zora are down that way.

“Excuse me, can you tell me where my friends are?” I ask.

“No, dear. Just eat and back is what I was told.”

Taavi had said Bri and Zora are fine. It seemed so sincere, I believed her. But she didn’t mention a witch, so should I?

“I need to know where they are. Now.”

The gentleness in her eyes flickers with knowing. She reaches for a pocket in her shift. I don’t have to see her hand to know it’s curving around metal. This woman isn’t going to be taken advantage of. None of the Macazi are.

“Keep walking, dear,” she says, and it’s more of an order than a request.

Desperation pulls at me. For losing our footing, being pulled underground, taken off our mission. Getting trapped. Again. My friends being captured. A vein pulses at my jaw and the woman swallows. I could hurt this woman. Get what I want. Armed or not, I’m stronger.