“Do we have a choice?” Jess leaned against the wall. “I found the tunnel Dario talked about. It’s clear all the way down. I could hear footsteps above, and they weren’t from the basilica. They had to be from inside the prison.”

“No guards?”

“There was an automaton lion,” he said. “I took care of it.” He tried to sound offhand about it.

“You what?”

“Off switch,” he said. “I told you, I did it to a sphinx the night everything went wrong with Dario.”

She thought about it and shuddered. “That was a sphinx. I’ve seen the size of these lions. Not sure I’d have tried facing one down there in the dark. And you should have let me know what you were doing! If you hadn’t come back . . .”

She was right, of course. He should have left word. It had been a stupid risk; that fact had finally registered with the rising of the sun, and he could have disappeared without a trace into the dark, crushed and rotting beneath the prison. Worse than that, he could have destroyed any chance they had of finding Thomas. “Sorry.”

“Do it again and I’ll kill what the automaton doesn’t eat.” She meant it—or thought she did. Her Welsh lilt came out strong when she said it. He didn’t have time to reply—if he’d thought of anything to say to that—because there was a noise beyond the door, and as they both turned that direction, it swung open.

Santi. Khalila. Dario. Santi wore his uniform and carried a full pack and weapons. Khalila had opted for a dark gray dress with her robe thrown over the top and a head scarf, and carried a pack of her own. Dario was in plain, sturdy clothes and his Scholar’s robe. They all looked tense.

“Someone tried to kill Captain Santi,” Khalila blurted.

Glain, who’d been about to speak, was stunned into silence, so Jess jumped in.

“What? How?”

“Poison in the fruit in my room,” he said. “No way to know who put it there, but I think we can guess.”

“The Artifex.”

“He’s done toying with us, and I think he’ll close his trap now . . . He deliberately left us all behind while he went off to the Senate. We’re out of time.”

“But we didn’t bring all our things,” Khalila said. “Can we go back for them?”

“No. You can’t. If you turn back, you stay behind. Are you staying?”

“Don’t rush us,” Dario snapped. “It’s a big decision, you know, to turn our backs on our futures. Our families. Everything we’ve ever believed.”

“No, it isn’t,” Khalila said, and took in a deep breath. “We’ve been thinking about this for a long time, Dario. I thought we’d already decided where our loyalty had to lie. Mine is with them. Is yours?”

“Sweet flower . . .”

“Don’t. If you want to go, just go. This isn’t the time for your charm.”

Dario studied her and then slowly nodded. “All right,” he said. “All right. Yes. We go.”