“Don’t you remember the way that crowd looked at you the night we got sent to the mainland?” I ask, with a bitter smile and an edge to my words. “Those people might’ve rioted to free you right then and there if you’d just had the sense to ask them to. You were their hero. A shadowseeker, willing to do whatever it took to hunt down the last mirror dealer and keep his island safe.”

You didn’t hunt any of us down because we put the island in danger. The words hang between us, unspoken.

“I’m willing to bet you’re still their hero,” I continue after a moment. “I’m willing to bet people would trust you more than the mayor, and they’d sure as hell trust you more than me.”

His expression shifts the tiniest bit, but he turns away before I can interpret it, looking at the transmitter and the cavern beyond. The miners used to use that cavern as a staging area, though there’s nothing down there now except ancient railcars and some broken tracks. Not that Elliott would be able to see any of that in the pitch-black.

“Even so,” he says quietly, “not everyone would believe us. Not everyone would escape.”

I drop my hands in my pockets, suddenly exhausted. “No,” I agree. “But if you’ve got a better plan, I’m all ears.”

I curl my hands into fists, expecting to feel the comforting bite of my key in my fingers, but there’s nothing except the transmitter’s little remote. The key is missing. Elliott didn’t put it back after he used it to open the padlock.

It’s not important. I don’t need it anymore, I remind myself harshly, even as a spike of anxiety bites into me at its loss.

Elliott turns back around. He looks resigned. “What do you need me to do?” he asks.

He’s in. It’s what I needed, but I can’t manage to dredge up any satisfaction. “Help write our speech,” I tell him, pulling a hand out of my pocket to wave at the papers on the floor. “It needs to be short and believable. And we’ll need to hurry—I ran into a cop right before that cave-in, and she saw the transmitter. If they figure out I plan to use it to address the city, they’ll remove the radios from the shelters before we can get our message out.”

“Are you sure we can even transmit from down here?”

“That thing is just a hunk of imaginary metal and wiring,” I remind him, motioning at the chest. “It works because we, and everyone else who’s seen it, expect it to. So expect it to transmit just fine from down here, and it will.”

He scoops up a piece of paper from the ground. “I guess all we can do is try. Let’s get started, then.”