Kant flipped several large switches set into the wall. Rows of lights blinked on, one after another, leading down before turning to the side. The path was divided in half: a set of steps next to a smooth slope, all built out of the same stone.

“We have easier ways to get the barrels down these days,” Kant said, “but this is the original entrance.”

He led the way forward. Margot made it as far as the doorway before pulling up.

Steam and the press of bodies had kept the workroom humid and warm, enough that she’d been close to shedding her coat. That was a sharp distinction from the tunnel. The air was a breath of ice across her skin. It rolled out of the dim passageway, and with it came the smell of earth, of fruit, and of damp rot.

The tunnel would take her underground.

Fear, raw and hot like electricity, raced along her nerve endings.

Margot couldn’t handle underground spaces. She couldn’t remember how the phobia had started, but it had been a constant presence through her life. She could sometimes go months or even years forgetting about it, until the wrong circumstances collided.

It wasn’t exactly claustrophobia. Elevators were fine…unless they carried her to a basement floor. Something about the knowledge that a thick layer of soil was suspended over her pushed her anxiety past the breaking point.

Once, as a child, she’d had a dream of being tipped into a grave while still alive. Lying in the soft loam, her eyes open but her muscles unresponsive, she’d watched as shovelfuls of dirt were dropped onto her. Each one heavier than the last. Smothering her face. Crushing the air from her lungs. Pressing and pressing, until she knew she would never be able to claw her way out.

She’d woken drenched in feverish sweat. The next morning she’d tearfully begged her grandmother to burn her when she died. She didn’t like the idea of flames licking over her body either, but it was better than being buried.

The bulbs hanging from the ceiling were enough to light Kant’s shaggy hair as he stopped, eight steps down, to look back at her. The light did very little to break the shadows that clung around his eyes. He didn’t speak, but there was a question hanging in the silence. He expected her to follow.

And she didn’t have much of a choice. She’d agreed to this—a tour of the facility, including the cellars, as part of learning the business. If anything, this was the bare minimum.

The staff behind her were still watching, waiting. She wished they wouldn’t. She wished they could have just gone back to work after the introductions and left her struggle unseen.