Flint was sitting on the bed, his white-gold hair disarranged, his face distant and mournful.

“How are you, lad?”

“Well.” But he didn’t meet Chert’s eye.

“I wonder if that’s really true. Your mo…Opal says you had a bad night.” He sat down beside the boy and patted his knee. “Did you not sleep well?”

“Didn’t sleep.”

“Why not?” He peered at the pale, almost translucent face. Flint looked as though he needed sun. It was a strange thought—he certainly couldn’t remember ever thinking it about anyone else. Of course, most of the people he knew never even saw the sun if they could help it.

“Too noisy,” the boy said. “Too many voices.”

“Last night?” It was true that in the early part of the evening Cinnabar and some of the other Guildsmen had stopped by to talk about where Chert was going today, but they had been gone by the time the darklights came on. “Really? Well, we’ll try to keep it more quiet.”

“It’s too crowded,” Flint said. Before Chert could ask him to explain, he added: “I have bad dreams. Very bad.”

“Like what?”

Flint shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. Eyes, bright eyes, and someone holding me down.” His chest heaved with a sob. “It hurts!”

“Come on, lad. Don’t be feared. Things will get better, you’ve just had a rough time.” Helplessly, Chert put his arm around him and felt the child’s entire body shudder.

“But I want to go back to sleep! Nobody understands. They won’t let me sleep! They keep calling me!”

“Lie down, then.” He did his best, half helping, half forcing the child back into the bed. He pulled the blanket up to his chin. “Ssshhh. Go to sleep, now. Opal’s just in the other room. I have to go out to work, but I’ll be back later.”

Flint miserably allowed himself to be stroked and soothed into a thin, restless slumber. Chert got up as quietly as he could, desperate not to wake him.

What have we done to that boy? he wondered. What’s wrong with him? Odd as he was before, he was always alert, lively. He seems only half alive since I found him down in the Mysteries.

He didn’t even have the heart to talk about it to Opal, who felt the boy’s distraction and strangeness even more than he did: he only waved to her as he passed, tying on his tool belt.

“Vermilion Cinnabar had a message for you from her husband,” Opal called.

Chert stopped in the doorway. “What’s that?”

“She said to tell you that Chaven wants to see you again before you go upground.”

He sighed. “Why not?”

The physician was waiting in the middle of the mirrored floor of the Guild’s great hall. Several Funderlings were preparing the hall for the next meeting, politely avoiding him as he stood staring down, like children circling an absentminded father. For the first time Chert’s own people looked small to him in their own great hall.