Safiyah was still there. Nyx wasn’t sure why she was so surprised about that, but she was. The magician neatly sealed the wound. As the last bit of organic light from the hall was shut out, the voices Nyx had heard earlier got suddenly louder. She heard steps across the spongy flooring approach, then retreat.

“Cutting it a bit close, aren’t you?” Safiyah said.

“I thought you loved all this excitement,” Nyx said.

“I love orange-flavored popsicles. Fried maggots on toast. Sunset in Ashura. This? This, I merely tolerate.”

In the semi-darkness, Nyx could see that Raine had his hands over his mouth.

“Come on,” she said. “We have a long way to go yet.”

Safiyah peered at Raine. “Nyx, that man is not… well.”

“I could have told you that back in Nasheen,” Nyx said. “Now shut up and move. Where’s Ahmed?”

“Guarding our way out.”

They moved down another series of sticky corridors. Safiyah led, and Nyx held the rear. After a few minutes, Safiyah stopped.

“What is it?” Nyx hissed.

“It’s been resealed,” Safiyah said. “A moment.”

Nyx gazed into the darkness behind them. The walls oozed and chittered. Beneath her, the floor itself felt unsteady. She hated this fucking place. Like being inside some half-eaten corpse being transformed by maggots.

“There. This way,” Safiyah said, and they were moving again.

They came back up in a dark hall. As Nyx stepped up, she didn’t recognize it.

“Where are we?”

“I’m not sure,” Safiyah said. “I had to carve out another path.” She murmured something else, and a small buzzing swarm of tiny mutant hornets appeared, as if from the walls themselves. The swarm buzzed off down an adjacent corridor.

“Come,” Safiyah said. “Our people are this way.”

Raine limped along, still too slow for Nyx’s taste. They needed to get him cleaned up and into some proper clothes. As it was, he stood out abominably here.

Safiyah turned the next corner. Nyx heard a shot. It was oddly muffled—a result of the spongy walls and floor. Safiyah’s arms windmilled back. She hit the floor like a tumbling mantis, all awkward limbs and angles.

Nyx swore and pulled her scattergun. She pushed Raine behind her and pressed close against the wall.

It was hard to gauge how many were waiting without taking a look herself. Safiyah was absolutely still—far too still for Nyx’s taste. Unless they’d gotten her directly in the heart or head, nobody was that still unless they were trying not to draw further attention to themselves. Nyx had seen stuff like that all the time with wounded soldiers on the field. Better to lie low and let the enemy walk all over you.