It’s cool inside the hall of holding rooms. The duct curves, following the arc of the wall, and we move with it. All along the way, thin slats in the side of the duct give us a faint view of the corridor below.

Two guards stand at each holding room’s door. We stay quiet in the shadows of the rafters, looking through the slats as scarlet-clad soldiers march by in regular intervals. None of them bother to look up at the duct running along the ceiling—none of them seem concerned.

We listen for a while, catching bits of their conversations as they go. Their focus seems to be on the prisoners who’ve just arrived, but as they talk and laugh, I see them do what I used to do—passing bets on slips of paper between them. Likely on whom they think will win the games over the next few days. As they tease one another, I study the rest of the hall.

The number of soldiers at the arena is numerous—but not as much as I’d expect. That’s a surprise. Back when I lived in this city, there’d be at least a dozen patrols of six, all assigned to this area of the arena alone. Now I count three. Where are the rest?

I wait carefully until there’s a brief pause between clusters of soldiers, then continue without a sound along the tunnel. Jeran moves in a silent crouch as he glances inside each of the rooms across the hall below, looking past the grates for any sign of someone familiar. He has been the more careful one of us, but now his movements take on urgency that’s rare in him. I have only ever seen it once. It was on the battlefield during our final stand, and it was to protect Aramin.

He stops abruptly. Everything in him freezes. Then he glances over his shoulder at me and nods once.

The door is a series of wide metal bars, and through them, I find myself looking into a dimly lit room at the shadowed faces of Adena and Aramin. No sign of Tomm or Pira, who must be kept in a different room. Both of them are so heavily chained that it looks ridiculous; shackles on their wrists and ankles, waists and neck, all of them connected to the wall, while half a dozen guards stand outside their door—three facing them, three facing the hall.

My heart sinks. Constantine fully intends for them to participate in the game tomorrow.

Being held here, they will be hard to get out. The keys that unlock these prison doors and their chains are not keys at all, but strings of numbers input as a code. The codes are kept at the palace itself, accessible likely only by the Premier’s personal guard.

One of the soldiers is saying something to Adena, but she doesn’t pay him any attention. Neither she nor Aramin looks up where we are crouched in the shadows, watching from our small opening. Instead, they sit across from each other in the room with their arms weighed down, leaning against their knees as they ignore the guard speaking to them.