Since I now had inside knowledge of the compound, I led the way. The light filtering in from the entrance behind us illuminated the tunnel enough that I could see, but Elnos conjured a glowing ball of light anyway. The tunnel was less than a hundred yards long, and curved around the compound rather than going straight into it. My nose detected no other lurking guards, and I imagined that the rest were either in the deeper parts of the bunker, or above as they prepared to help evacuate the scientists.

“Rylan?” I called mentally as I opened a door at the end of the tunnel and stepped into a blue-carpeted hall. We were in the staff quarters. All the doors were flung wide open, the beds within them empty and unmade as the residents had hastily fled. A guard lay dead in the middle of the hall, blood seeping from a head wound into the carpet and congealing there. Rylan had probably killed him in his haste to get Noria away from the evacuation.

“Sunaya? Are you inside?”

“Yes, I’m in the staff quarters with Elnos.”

“There’s an elevator right outside the labs, in the north hall,” Rylan told me. “Get down here, fast.”

Elnos and I sprinted in the direction Rylan had indicated. We passed more dead guards on our way, and ran into two live ones that I dispatched with my chakrams. I didn’t want to use my magic unless it was absolutely necessary—it was a drain on my energy, which I needed to preserve if we were going to get out of this bunker alive.

“Here it is,” Elnos said, sounding a little out of breath as we approached the elevator door. He scowled as he noticed the keyhole in the panel, where a call button would normally be. “I’m guessing your cousin didn’t think about the fact that we don’t have a key?”

“Nope.” I strode over to the elevator doors, then wedged my fingers into the crack and pulled. The doors screeched a little in protest as I pulled them apart, revealing the elevator shaft that dropped sharply into utter darkness.

“Looks like we’ll have to float down there,” Elnos said. He muttered the Words to the same levitation spell Fenris had taught me when we were in Mexia, and his feet began to lift off the ground. I did the same, and followed Elnos down the shaft, slowly descending to the next floor.

“Hey, wise guy,” I said to Rylan as I lit a flame—even my eyes couldn’t make out anything in this blackness. “We’re headed down the elevator shaft. Is this floor I’m coming up on the one you’re at?”

“Yes! Hurry. We’re under attack.”