Shoulder to shoulder, we looked down a long, dimly lit room that narrowed into a black hallway. The electric lights were pale, and the sun streamed in for only a few feet. It was silent, and a cool breath of underground air, blowing out from the depths, moved my hair.

“Which way?” Ivy said, and I crept inside, feeling the chill take me. The faint glow of pixy dust showed when she pulled the door shut, and I pointed.

“There.”

It smelled like oil and damp—of sweaty men, old machinery, and dusty paperwork that hadn’t seen the light of the sun for twenty years. This was not on the regular tour, and I wondered where we were as we followed the corridor down and around, shunning doors and open archways when Jenks’s dust pointed elsewhere.

“Where’s the third one?” she whispered.

“Back at the car, out cold. Don’t let them start to sing, okay?” I said breathlessly, and she nodded, taking that at face value.

We have to be almost under one of the feet, I thought, wondering how Quen kept Trent safe every day. I suppose watching Trent in an office was easier than trying to shake three guys in a Cadillac, but I was going to get the man a leash if we found him alive.

A soft crack of metal shocked through me, and then Jenks’s yelp.

“Shit,” Ivy swore, darting past me and running down a corridor.

Gasping, I bolted after her. Trent was shouting—it sounded like Latin—and, my boots skidding on the oil-slicked cement, I grabbed a rusty ceiling support and swung myself around a dusty machine and into a puddle of dirty light.

Squinting, I watched Jenks bust another bulb to make it darker yet. Two shadows were scurrying into the dark, Ivy’s sleek form chasing them. The ceiling was low, and the space was crowded with abandoned machines. Trent had his back to me as he knelt next to his suitcase under a light, a protection bubble around him. Relief hit me, and I paused, torn between seeing if he was okay and following Ivy, busy thunking people into walls by the sound of it.

The circle was larger than I thought Trent could make, almost one of my size, and I was glad I’d given him the magnetic chalk. He had a ribbon draped over his shoulder, and a cloth hat on his head that I didn’t recognize. I sniffed, wondering if that was an extinguished candle I smelled or just sulfur. He was kneeling and looked haggard as our eyes met, seeming almost scholarly with that hat and ribbon, but he seemed okay.

“Rachel! Some help here!” Ivy yelled, and I gave him a look telling him to stay put and ran. The glow of Jenks’s dust lit a dark corner, and I winced at a loud clang. Crap, if that had been Ivy’s head…

I barreled into another puddle of light, scrambling to catch the arm of the man she had flung. It was the short guy, and using his own momentum, I threw him into a rusty ceiling support. He hit with a thud, grasping weakly at it as he slid to the dirt-caked floor. With a dull crack, the beam he’d hit broke from the ceiling, falling right on him. A splattering of ceiling dust slipped over him, patterning him with rust. I wedged a toe under him and flipped him over to see his pained expression. “Surprise,” I said, and his eyes widened.