Logen nodded, sucking sourly at his bloody gums. It seemed like a long time since the two of them had last been in a fix like this one, sliding across the dizzy rooftops of the Agriont, hunted by men in black masks. It seemed a long, hard time, but nothing much had changed. For all their riding together, and eating together, and facing death together, Ferro was still as bitter, and as angry, and as sore a pain in his arse as she had been when they first set out. He tried to be patient, really he did, but it was getting to be tiring.

'Do you have to?' he muttered, looking her right in one yellow eye.

'Have to what?'

'Be a cunt. Do you have to?'

She frowned at him for a moment, opened her mouth, paused, then shrugged her shoulders. 'You should have let me fall.'

'Eh?' He'd been expecting some furious insult from her. Some stabbing at him with a finger, certainly, and possibly with a blade. That had sounded almost like regret. But if it had been, it didn't last long.

'You should have let me fall, then I'd be on my own down here without you to get in my way!'

Logen snorted with disgust. There was no helping some people. 'Let go of you? Don't worry! Next time I will!'

'Good!' spat Ferro, stalking off into the tunnel, shadows quickly swallowing her. Logen felt a sudden stab of panic at the idea of being left alone.

'Wait!' he hissed, and hurried after.

The passageway sloped downwards, Ferro's feet padding noiseless, Logen's scraping in the dust, the last shreds of light gleaming on wet stone. He kept the fingertips of his left hand trailing along the wall, trying not to groan with each step at the pain in his bruised ribs, and his torn elbow, and his bloody jaw.

It grew darker, and darker yet. The walls and the floor became nothing but hints, then nothing at all. Ferro's dirty shirt was a grey ghost, hovering in the dead air before him. A few weak-kneed steps further and it was gone. He waved his hand in front of his face. Not so much as a trace. Just inky, fizzing blackness.

He was buried. Buried in the darkness, alone. 'Ferro, wait!'

'What?' He blundered into her in the dark, felt something shove him in the chest and nearly fell over backwards, staggering against the damp wall. 'What the hell—'

'I can't see anything!' he hissed, hearing his own voice full of panic. 'I can't… where are you?' He flailed at the air with his open hands, all sense of direction gone, his heart pounding, his stomach sick and heaving. What if she'd left him down there, the evil bitch? What if—