I frowned. What would a person be working on in a secret cave below the palace except something sinister? There were a few stalagmites but no real cover – I couldn’t sneak past the entrance and expect to remain undiscovered. So I lingered, squinting at the workstation, trying to make out something useful.

“Mephi,” I whispered, “can you—?”

And then Lin lifted a flask from the table’s surface and drank from it. Her whole body went rigid, the flask still gripped in her right hand.

Poison? I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing. I tensed, wondering if I should do something to help. But I was supposed to be spying on the Emperor for the Shardless Few, not helping her. Helping Lin wasn’t my job. I mean, it technically was. But it wasn’t the job I’d been sent here for.

But what sort of person was I? I didn’t know what sort of person she was, not yet, and what if she was dying? Could I really sit here and watch?

Her hand moved, setting the flask down. I let out a breath.

Mephi, next to me, was sniffing the air, his whiskers trembling. “It smells familiar,” he whispered by way of explanation when I stared at him.

“You’ve never been here before,” I said.

His ears flattened. “I know that.”

By the time I looked back to Lin, I saw something glinting between her fingers. A key. Another bedamned key. She stood up from where she crouched over a chest, and made her way to the far end of the cavern. I couldn’t see what she was doing there, behind a cluster of stalagmites, though I heard scraping sounds, and then soft grunting as she lifted something.

As I watched, she crouched and then disappeared.

I gestured to Mephi and we moved into the cavern. I stayed close to the wall opposite the side with the pool, hopeful that if Lin popped back up again, I could hide in the shadows against the undulating stone. It was a risk, but I’d taken a fair bit of those in my day. They mostly worked out in my favor. Mostly.

Behind the cluster of stalagmites lay an opened hatch and a slab of stone. Light emanated from the hatch. Mephi sniffed the air, all the hair on his back standing on end. “Don’t like it,” he said beneath his breath. “Smells bad.”

I resisted the urge to tap my staff against the cavern floor, though I could feel the sweat gathering on my palm. I wouldn’t know what was down there unless I looked.

A growl, thick and gravelly, filled the cavern.

Now my hair was standing on end. Mephi darted forward before I could stop him, ducking his head into the hole. “Monster,” he squeaked at me. He opened his mouth as though trying to form a more coherent thought, and then snapped it shut again.