Two of the guild members got on the lift with the group ahead of us, but one remained behind. He leaned against the far wall, eyes closed and face slack with weariness as we waited for the lift to come back down. I could feel the tension in each member of Tips’s gang as we set to loading the lift, and it only escalated when the troll got on board with us.

“Cave-in?” Tips asked as the lift began to rise, moving much more slowly than when it had brought us down.

“Yes,” the troll replied. “Finn’s gang was working the south tunnel and brought the whole thing down. The one we’d closed over concerns about stability,” he added pointedly.

“Survivors?”

“None.” The troll scrubbed a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “No idea what the blasted fools were doing down that way.”

“Heard they were looking short on quota,” Tips replied, tone neutral. “That tunnel was known to be rich pickings.”

The guild member straightened and glared at Tips. “And now Finn and all his gang are dead because they couldn’t accept the loss of one.”

“Easy for you to say,” Tips muttered.

All murmurs of conversation ceased. It was fair to say none of us even breathed as we watched to see what would happen. The troll’s uniform rustled as he straightened his shoulders, then in a flash, he shoved Tips hard against a stack of crates and the whole platform rocked. “Easy for me to say? I just spent the past four hours digging up fifty yards’ worth of tunnel to find only blood and unrecognizable raw meat!”

The two of them were practically on top of me. I tried to squeeze away, but there was no room. The troll had Tips by the shoulders, but he didn’t seem to be hurting him. I felt the tremble of his arm where it rested against me and realized that the guild member was genuinely upset about the death of the miners. “Half you miserable lot don’t have the power to keep the dust off your heads and you insist on going into tunnels a bloody Montigny would avoid. And when the rocks come down, I have to dig you out.”

“So don’t,” Tips said. “It’s not as though you care whether we live or die.”

Several of the gang members groaned in dismay, but Tips showed no sign of backing down. “Just be careful you don’t kill us all, or you lot might find yourselves having to do an honest day’s work.”

“Stupid half-breed!” The troll punched him in the face and I winced at the sound of cracking bone. “Every time those tunnels cave, I will dig out your miserable hide, even if there isn’t enough left to fill a bucket. That’s a promise.”

My skin prickled with the charge of magic, and several of the miners gasped aloud in surprise at a troll uttering those binding words. As I tried to struggle away from the two, the troll looked up and our eyes met. His widened in shock. My chest rose and fell in short little jerks as I waited for him to react to my presence. I was caught. He was sure to turn me in and I couldn’t even begin to think of an explanation for what I was doing down here. He opened his mouth to speak, and I held my breath.