I heaved and hauled for all I was worth, but I was out of time. Just as the patrol rounded the corner, I dived off the side of the staircase and into the shadows.

“It’s as though the blasted things knew what we were planning,” one of the guards said, spitting into the gutter. “Has to be a dozen of them in the city, if not more.”

“They’ll all be in the city if the miners guild doesn’t speed along the process,” another replied.

“It’s not the miners, it’s the builders,” a third chimed in. “Seems there’s some concern about the strain it’ll put on the tree, and half of them are tied up with finishing the construction.”

“Waste of time, that,” the first said. “No point to it other than to free Tristan from that folly of a promise. Looks like the old devil has a soft spot for his son, after all.”

They all laughed, then one added, “Wouldn’t be our problem if the King would open the gates. Five centuries of captivity and we finally get our freedom only to have to hide in the same old hole for the sake of a feud between royals.”

“Do you want to be caught between Tristan and Roland?” the first asked, but however the other two responded was drowned out by a series of booms.

I cowered next to the steps, eyes on the darkness above as I waited for the rocks to start falling. For Trollus to be destroyed, everyone killed, and me along with them.

But other than a shower of tiny pebbles and dust, nothing happened.

“Hope no one was still in the labyrinth,” one of the guards laughed, but there was a slight shake to his voice. “Will be strange not to see the occasional trader coming through that gate. End of an era.”

“End of an era,” the others repeated, and then they moved on.

It hit me then what had happened. Whether it had been to stop the sluag or prevent anyone from leaving, the trolls had collapsed the labyrinth. And I’d lost my escape route.

My stomach hollowed and I struggled to keep the sharp edges of panic from cutting too deep. I’d find another way, and if not, I still had friends in Trollus. If I needed to, I could hide in the city while we figured out a way for me to escape. But in the meantime, I’d risked everything coming here for information, and I refused to leave empty-handed.

Cautiously sticking my head out from the shadows, I checked to make sure the guards were gone, and then I turned my attention to my dagger, which was still jammed in the door. Getting in the library that way wasn’t going to happen. Neither, frankly, was getting anywhere other than the shadows I was crouched in. Trollus had been locked down, everyone but the King’s guards and those tasked with hunting down the sluag was hidden behind doors.

I shifted my weight on the sewer grate beneath me, cursing the sluag, Angoulême, the King, and most of all myself. I was going to be stuck here until curfew was lifted.