Getting into the ghoul city of Refuge, it turned out, was a great deal easier when you didn’t try to climb through a rock ingestor. Kit led them through the tunnels under Deepfire to one of a hundred disused, dead-end sections, and Gyre watched in mild surprise as a passage that looked like it had been totally blocked by a cave-in cleared itself in seconds. Small, crab-like constructs embedded in the boulders extended legs and hauled themselves out of the way, leaving a perfectly serviceable tunnel extending on into the darkness. Another construct waited just beyond, with seats like a carriage on the back of a spidery collection of legs.

“Let me guess,” Gyre said. “We ride that thing?”

Kit nodded delightedly. “It’s a long way to Refuge. That’s part of how they keep the city secure—there are a lot of tunnels under these mountains, with a lot of exits, and the constructs are constantly filling them in and digging new ones. So if you don’t have a proper mount, you’d just get lost down here.”

“Such trusting people, the ghouls,” Gyre said. He grabbed the side of the carriage-thing and hauled himself in, while Kit leapt up lightly beside him. Behind them, the crab-constructs were reassembling the pile of tumbled boulders.

Once they were settled, the carriage-construct started moving, its legs shifting with a smooth interlocking motion that conveyed barely a shudder to its passengers. It accelerated slowly but continuously, and within a few minutes they were moving through the tunnel at a shocking rate of speed, the walls a blur on either side and their mount’s legs rippling in a rolling gallop. Kit gave a delighted shout and threw her arms in the air.

“I love this part,” she confided.

“Until the damn thing runs into a wall and smashes us to paste,” Gyre said, trying hard to relax his grip on the arms of his seat.

“That’s half the fun!”

Gyre settled for clutching his pack instead. After the fight at the Spike, they’d had to go to ground, so it was stuffed with only the bare essentials. Two extra energy bottles—the one at his side was nearly empty now, with only the faintest glow in its crystal—his pouch of alchemicals, the remote trigger, and the single remaining bomb, a rough cylinder of lumpy clay. And, of course, the Core Analytica, cube-shaped and made of interlocking metal rods, which shifted with a smooth, oily motion whenever he touched it. I just hope we haven’t damaged the damn thing.