Their footsteps echoed as they traversed a narrow ledge running alongside the tracks. Doors lined the wall. Most were locked, but after a few minutes of trying different doors, Raurie grabbed the handle of one and managed to pull it open.

With bated breath, they entered the new corridor. Aina coughed on the dust and the stale air of the narrow hall. The only lights apart from Ryuu’s flare were flashing dots on electric panels set in the walls. Fuel tanks stood behind shining silver grates.

“Here,” Ryuu whispered a few minutes later.

They slowed to a stop under a wide, circular ventilation shaft in the ceiling, which was covered with a steel grate. Aina gulped at the sight.

The vent extended upward with no sign of light reaching down. It stared at them like the mouth of a giant snake that would eat them alive were it not for the metal blocking it.

Ryuu had mentioned a ladder, but she considered that an exaggeration on his part. The ladder was merely handholds dug into the wall that led upward beyond the grate. A section of the grate was made to slide away for maintenance in the vent, but it was currently locked with a heavy iron bolt.

“We should have about five hours before construction starts again,” he said.

Aina and Raurie lit candles to create a small circle of light, and Ryuu extinguished his flare. Aina sat close to the light. Water dripped somewhere nearby, the sound like a ticking clock counting down the time until it was too late to save Teo. The thought made her chest clench painfully and her breath shorten. She wished they’d had time to come up with a backup plan—a Blade never worked without one, after all—but they’d had to work with the little preparation time they’d had.

She was veering off course by choosing to rescue Teo instead, and was working with Ryuu, someone she should have killed the first night she’d met him. Everything about this situation went against what Kohl had taught her. But he’d left her to die, so she had to do the best she could to fix that. For a moment, she felt completely out of place here. She imagined how Kohl would forgive her once this mess was resolved.

After a brief silence, Raurie spoke, breaking into her reverie. “Did you know the seventh, eighth, and ninth floors of this prison all hold Inosen inmates? Three whole floors to try to hold us in. It’s an odd feeling to willingly be breaking into the prison most Inosen try to avoid.”

Aina laughed a little. “I never thought I’d be doing this either.”

“I wonder what King Verrain would say if he knew the Steels were building tunnels and trains right next to his old Tower.”

“Maybe he could have negotiated with them on it.” Aina shrugged. “He could have avoided a war if he negotiated instead of just attacking the Steels’ factories.”

“I’m rather happy I was a child, then,” Raurie said, wrinkling her nose. “Most of my memories of the war have faded away, but sometimes they come back.”