But according to Beira, he was a curmudgeon and a minor god of storms and wind. And she would know, given she was a hag—who were, just like their male counterparts, gods trapped in human flesh as a form of punishment. The only difference between the two was the fact that curmudgeons could alter their appearance to a more pleasing form while hags could not.

“We need to keep moving,” Locryn said, and did so without waiting for the rest of us.

Lugh hesitated. “Keep an eye on the situation and let me know the second anything changes.”

I nodded, took a final glance at the comms room, and then followed him into the tunnel. But every sense was now hyperaware, and though I couldn’t see or hear anything untoward, I could feel it in the caress of the wind.

Which was annoying and scary all the same time, especially when I had no real idea how to control the wind’s parameters.

But whatever had caused that slight tremor in the air was definitely following us. Either it was a very hungry rat, or it was something else entirely. The movement didn’t feel large enough to be caused by human or fae—although in all honesty, I was so green when it came to understanding this particular “gift,” I could be reading all the signals completely wrong—but that still didn’t discount the possibility of it being some kind of shifter in his alternate form.

And rat shifters did exist in Deva. I knew for a fact there were several working for the IIT; one of them had even saved me from an attack when I’d walked into a trap to save Mathi’s life. He might be my ex and a lying, cheating elf of the highest order, but I’d been well aware when I’d stepped into a relationship with him that light elves didn’t view them the same way the rest of us did, and I just couldn’t hate him for, well, doing what came naturally.

We eventually reached the end of the military tunnels and stepped through a break in the wall. The neighboring tunnel was low, narrow, and far older, forcing Lugh to bend at an uncomfortable-looking angle. I was ten inches shorter, but even so, had to duck fairly low to get past some of the sections. Thankfully, the ceiling height did improve as we moved further along, but it never gained the more comfortable proportions of the military tunnels. Eventually, Locryn stopped and pointed to a neat three-foot circular shaft cut into the rough-hewn stone ceiling, right at the point where it met the wall.

“There she is, just as requested,” he said with obvious pride.

I shone the light up. The shaft was about ten feet deep and topped by a large flagstone; that had to be the basement’s floor, given the floors in Nialle’s main living areas were all lovely old oak.

Evenly spaced notches lined either side of the shaft and were no doubt intended to be foot- and handholds, though the distance between each did make them a little more suitable for dwarves rather than we oversized pixies.