I tried not to think too hard about what it would mean if the smuggling station at Ryevost wasn’t active. How were we supposed to find a prince who didn’t want to be found, and do it while remaining hidden ourselves? If Nikolai was alive, he might be looking for me, or he might have sought alliance elsewhere. For all he knew, I had died in the battle at the Little Palace.

The tunnels grew darker as we moved farther from the White Cathedral and its strange alabaster glow. Soon our way was lit by nothing but the swaying light of our lanterns. In some places, the caverns were so narrow that we had to remove our packs and wriggle along between the press of walls. Then, without warning, we’d find ourselves in a giant cave wide enough to pasture horses.

Mal had been right: so many people traveling together were noisy and unwieldy. We made frustratingly slow progress, marching in a long column with Zoya, Nadia, and Adrik spread out along the line; in case of a cave-in, the air our Squallers could summon might provide valuable breathing time for anyone trapped.

David and Genya kept falling behind, but he seemed to be the one responsible for the lag. Finally, Tolya hefted the huge pack from David’s narrow shoulders.

He groaned. “What do you have in this thing?”

“Three pairs of socks, one pair of trousers, an extra shirt. One canteen. A tin cup and plate. A cylindrical slide rule, a chrondometer, a jar of spruce sap, my collection of anticorrosives—”

“You were only supposed to pack what you need.”

David gave an emphatic nod. “Exactly.”

“Please tell me you didn’t bring all of Morozova’s journals,” I said.

“Of course I did.”

I rolled my eyes. There had to be at least fifteen leather-bound books. “Maybe they’ll make good kindling.”

“Is she kidding?” David asked, looking concerned. “I can never tell if she’s kidding.”

I was. Mostly. I’d hoped the journals would give me insight into the firebird and maybe even into how the amplifiers could help me destroy the Fold. But they’d been a dead end, and if I was honest, they’d frightened me a little too. Baghra had warned me of Morozova’s madness, and yet somehow I’d expected to find wisdom in his work. Instead, his journals had provided me with a study in obsession, all of it documented in nearly indecipherable scrawl. Apparently genius didn’t require good penmanship.

His early journals chronicled his experiments: the blacked-out formula for liquid fire, a means of preventing organic decay, the trials that had led to the creation of Grisha steel, a method for restoring oxygen to the blood, the endless year he’d spent finding a way to create unbreakable glass. His skills extended beyond those of an ordinary Fabrikator, and he was well aware of it. One of the essential tenets of Grisha theory was “like calls to like,” but Morozova seemed to believe that if the world could be broken down to the same small parts, each Grisha should be able to manipulate them. Are we not all things? he demanded, underlining the words for emphasis. He was arrogant, audacious—but still sane.