“This? This is only some dynamite. I’ve got a lot of dynamite packed up in the back along with the guns. I’d like to think of the guns as a last resort, really. It’ll be less trouble if we can just plug up the holes, cave in the tunnels … less work for us, and nobody on our end gets hurt.”

West turned his attention to whatever else was inside the wagon, shrugged, and said, “Sounds like a plan to me.”

The gate swung open. Jay and Martin exited the tower, joined by the man who’d fetched them.

“Over here, boys.” West waved them out to the carriage.

Angeline sat back on her heels and everyone else slumped over as well. Rector saw naked horror in Zeke’s eyes, and something he couldn’t quite pinpoint in Houjin’s. At a glance it looked like anger, but it might’ve been fear.

The princess said, “Back to the Vaults now. All of us. We wouldn’t have time left on these filters to do those men any damage—even if we weren’t outmanned and outgunned.”

“We need to tell my mother,” Zeke said tightly.

“Your mother, and Mr. Swakhammer, and anybody else who might be helpful.”

Houjin said, “I’ll tell Captain Cly.”

Angeline looked hard at Rector and told him, “And you’ll take the news to Yaozu, because I’m not going to do it. Come on, back around this way.” She led them around the rear of the tower, leading them in the hard, dark places between the bricks of the water reservoir and the stones of the wall.

“But we need to go downhill, not up!” Rector objected.

“I know, but we’ll avoid ’em better over here. The wall heads farther north, see? Cuts across the cemetery, like I said. And I know a secret or two inside that cemetery.”

When they were far enough to move without drawing attention, they ran as best they could—huffing and puffing through the struggle of their filters and stumbling along in the wall’s shadow, where they could scarcely see the ground in front of them.

Once they were out of earshot, Houjin began asking questions. “Is there an underground entrance near here?”

The princess confirmed this without turning around or looking over her shoulder.

“Is it inside a mausoleum?”

“That’s a real big word,” she said. “What’s it mean?”

“It’s like a house for dead people. They had them in—”

“New Orleans,” she cut him off. “You saw a lot down in Louisiana, didn’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am. And a mausoleum is for burying dead people when you can’t put them in the ground.”

“A house? For dead people?” She shook her head. “Sounds like a waste of time and trouble to me. No, we aren’t going to no house of the dead.”