I took Mary underground as the Festival raged above. Truff help me, I did. Why I thought this might be a good thing for us beyond ensuring our immediate survival, I don’t know. The Kalif’s men were too close to our home, and I could sense the gray caps getting even closer. The spores in my skin rose to the surface and pointed in their direction. My skin was literally pulling in their direction, yearning to join them—that was how close to turning traitor my body had become. Besides, some F&L louts were five doors down, beating an old woman senseless. It seemed clear they’d reach our door before long.

“Do you trust me?” I asked Mary. She was pale and shaking. She wouldn’t look at me, but she nodded. I don’t know if I’ve ever loved her more than at that moment, as she left everything familiar behind. I kissed her. “Get your jacket,” I told her. “Bring the canteen from the kitchen.”

And then we set off. The place I meant to take her was underground, yes, but a place rarely inhabited by gray caps. The entrance lay halfway between our home and the F&L thugs. We had to hurry. We were scurrying to a rat hole before the other rats could catch us. I had my greatcoat on, which I had seeded with a few varieties of camouflaging fungi. I was carrying an umbrella for some reason—I don’t even remember why anymore. Except I remember joking with Mary about it, to make her laugh, at least a little bit. But she was too scared, frozen. I really think she thought we were both about to die. Thankfully, I was more or less human right then, or she would have been out of her mind with terror. When you can’t count on your lover to stay in one consistent shape …

We beat the F&L thugs to the entrance by a few minutes—we could hear their cries and catcalls, the swish of their torches, smell the bittersweet decay that coated anyone who handled fungal weapons for too long—but they passed us by as we descended ever deeper into the hole, down a ladder.

“Where are we going?” Mary asked me. I don’t know if she really wanted an answer or not. She smelled like fear, her perfume gone sour.

“Keep following me,” I told her. To her, it was dark as we came to the end of the ladder and into a tunnel, but my eyes were different than they had been. I could see things she couldn’t. I could see markers in the tunnel. I could see colors spiraling out of the dark. I held her hand—cold, and clutching my hand desperately—as we walked through the passageway. It was wet now—we were wading through thick, shallow water, the tunnel beginning to slope downward, so we had to be careful not to slip. Through the darkness, I could see the sightless eyes of certain mushrooms, the fiery green of creeping mosses. We could hear dim, dumb shudders above from some kind of bombing: I remember being, insanely enough, happy to hear that sound. Surely it would make Mary realize we could not have stayed aboveground?

Of course, as a corrective counterbalance, the smell coming from below us was rank, stifling. And then, as if to undo all of my reassurances, there came the sound of scuttling, of scattering. That’s when I think her spirit really broke and she began to panic. She pulled away from me, to turn back, to run. I held on to her wrist, would not let go. I had to put my hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming.

“We’re lost, my love, if you make a sound,” I said. “We’re dead. You understand?” She nodded, and I took my hand from her mouth. Her eyes in the dim light were white and wide.

The sounds came from below us, moving fast. Something wanted out. Something wanted to reach the surface. It wasn’t my place to stop it even if I could, which I couldn’t. There was no time to do anything but what I did: I pulled Mary inside of my greatcoat and pushed her into the side of the passageway, my coat covering both of us, and the coat itself covered with the protective spores. They had begun to take root and form fruiting bodies. I had to hope it would be enough.

The scuttling sound and the smell became more intense. I could tell Mary was still stifling her screams. She was shaking, her body tight against mine. Nothing at Blythe Academy, or in her relatively short life so far, had prepared her for anything like this moment.

Then they were all around us—gray caps, racing up the tunnel, speaking in clicks and whistles. One even brushed against my coat, but they were in such a hurry that they did not stop, and before long there was silence again, save for the echo of their progress to the surface. Something was going to happen tonight; my instincts had been right. It would be much safer belowground than above, because tonight even the gray caps would be on the surface. I shuddered, pulled Mary closer.

“Can you go on?” I asked her.

“I think so,” she said, her voice calmer than before.

I’ve often wondered since if that was the point—if it was in that tunnel, as the gray caps passed by, that she made her decision. If she had decided then that she refused to believe any of it, no matter what she saw. If she was going to disown me, discredit me because of that moment. Or this moment. Or the moment after that. I’ll never be sure, but I do wonder. For me, though, the moment was a sweet one: to smell her hair, to feel her next to me, to know we were both still alive, and together.