The commotion aboveground intensified. The roaring screech of power tools sounded from the drain grate nearby. The understreets concussed with the assault of a jackhammer.

“They’re coming,” Chev said. “Leave the child and run. Its kind will claim it soon. Hide—or you’re finished. We all are.”

Beth lifted Bracken’s feet from the ground and clutched him to her chest as she splashed down the tunnel. I limped after them.

“Pack the tarps,” I called to the disappearing bob of her curls.

The Kindred packed their homes on their backs and vanished into the network of tunnels as the sunwalkers broke through to reclaim their stolen child. Dust rained all along the cracks we’d made—our unnatural breaches widened under the stress of the city’s machines.

Beth, Bracken, Chev, Belle, and I huddled in an enclave, listening to their frantic mission. A loud crack echoed from the tunnel. It traveled, ripping along the underground network. The air filled with dust. A roar like a wrecking train followed. And then all went black with soot, then as bright as day.

The stone all around us seemed to roar, the bricks at our backs throbbing with the vibrations of the world coming undone. Tides of dust rolled past our enclave, chased by light strong enough to throw our shadows against the walls.

The city had fallen. The understreets were now the settling ground for the rubble of that which had rested above our heads. Small tracts of tunnel remained, clogged with debris.

Chev rubbed at his eyes and gasped as the pure sunlight raked at his pale face. Beth reached up and took his face in her hands. His breathing slowed. His eyelids split and peeled back to reveal nothing but a field of white shot through with bulging red capillaries. The red spread through the sclera like a stain. His pupils had contracted to nothing, sealed, shut off from the light forever. Beth’s hands flinched back.

“You see what you’ve done, child? That’s an end to us all. The sun has risen on the understreets, and the time of the Kindred is over.”

I pulled Beth and Bracken behind me. Belle reached out and stroked Chev’s cheek. “What do we do now?” she asked.

Chev choked on another wave of dirt blowing through our small section of tunnel. He grasped Belle’s hands to his cheeks and a tremor slipped into his voice. “We do what we have always done. We follow the tunnels. Whatever is left of them.”

“But where?” Belle asked. In the light, her bulging white knuckles writhed like compost grubs.

“To the only place left—the last place, the Last Drain.”

***

Chev shoved Beth in the small of her back. She stumbled through the knee-deep water toward the metal grate. “You’re the expert with a shovel, child. Now dig.”