What if someone was waiting for us up there? What if the Apparat had switched sides yet again and set the Darkling on our trail? I wasn’t thinking straight. Mal believed the explosions had been a random attack on the tunnels, and that was the only thing that made sense. The Apparat couldn’t know where we’d be or when. And even if the Darkling had somehow found out that we were headed for Ryevost, why bother using bombs to drive us to the surface? He could just wait for us to turn up there.

“Let’s go,” I said. “I feel like I’m suffocating.”

Mal signaled for Tolya and Tamar to flank me.

“Be ready,” he said to them. “Any sign of trouble, you get her out of here. Take the tunnels due west as far as you can.”

It was only after he’d started climbing the ladder that I realized we’d all hung back, waiting for him to go first. Tolya and Tamar were both more experienced fighters, and Mal was the only otkazat’sya among us. So why was he the one taking the brunt of the risk? I wanted to call him back, tell him to be careful, but it would just sound absurd. “Careful” wasn’t something we did anymore.

At the top of the ladder, he gestured down at me, and I released the light, pitching us into darkness. I heard a thump, the sound of hinges straining, then a soft grunt and a creak as the trapdoor opened. No light flooded down, no shouts, no gunfire.

My heart was pounding in my chest. I followed the sounds of Mal levering himself up, his footfalls above us. Finally, I heard the scrape of a match, and light bloomed through the trapdoor. Mal whistled twice—the all clear.

One by one, we ascended the ladder. When I stuck my head through the trapdoor, a chill slid over my spine. The room was hexagonal, its walls carved from what looked like blue lapis, each studded with wooden panels painted with a different Saint, their golden halos glinting in the lamplight. The corners were thick with milky cobwebs. Mal’s lantern rested on a stone sarcophagus. We were in a crypt.

“Perfect,” said Zoya. “From a tunnel to a tomb. What’s next, an outing to a slaughterhouse?”

“Mezle,” David said, pointing to one of the names carved into the wall. “They were an old Grisha family. There was even one of them at the Little Palace before—”

“Before everyone died?” put in Genya helpfully.

“Ziva Mezle,” Nadia said quietly. “She was a Squaller.”

“Can we host this salon somewhere else?” Zoya asked. “I want to get out of here.”

I rubbed my arms. She had a point.

The door looked like heavy iron. Tolya and Mal braced their shoulders against it as we arrayed ourselves behind them, hands raised, Inferni with their flints ready. I took my position in back, prepared to wield the Cut, if necessary.

“On three,” Mal said.

A burble of laughter escaped me. Everyone turned.