The Csestriim paused, eyes going distant and unfocused for a moment, then nodded. “One hundred and eighty-seven paces. Give or take.”

Kaden stared. “Did you measure it?”

“In my mind. It’s been thousands of years. I could be off.”

“Two hundred paces,” Triste groaned, shaking her head. “I’m not sure I could swim that far above water.”

“You don’t have to swim,” Kiel replied. “Not much. I’ll guide you, pull you.”

“And what about you?” Kaden asked, shaking his head. “It seems almost impossible, even without the extra effort.”

“There are techniques,” the Csestriim replied, “to slow the heart, to use the muscles more judiciously. . . .”

Kaden paused, realizing all over again that the man beside him was not a man at all. The Shin, with their training and their discipline, could manage amazing feats, could sit nearly naked in the winter snow or stay awake for a week, but compared to Kiel, the Shin were children, fools, tiny creatures exploring the first rooms of a vast city, the scope of which they could barely apprehend.

“And me?” Kaden asked.

“You will enter the vaniate here,” Kiel replied. “That will do something to slow your pulse and keep you from panic. If you are judicious with your breath, it will be enough.”

“If,” Kaden said, shaking his head. “If you remember the distance correctly, if I can follow you down there, if I can hold on to the vaniate . . . It’s all ifs. I’m starting to wonder if we shouldn’t risk the ship.”

Kiel cocked his head to the side. “Nothing is certain. If we travel the tunnels above, you trust to luck. If we take this route, you have only yourself to rely on.”

“And you,” Triste said, rounding on him, her voice high, close to hysteria. “You’re Csestriim. Now that Kaden’s broken you out, you could take us down there and leave us. We don’t even know the tunnel leads to the kenta!”

Kiel nodded. “I could. And you don’t. What you do know, however,” he went on, indicating the lacerations around Triste’s wrists, the blistered fingers of her right hand, “is what will happen to you if they capture you again. The water may kill you, but not like this.”

Triste blanched, glanced down the corridor the way they had come. Kaden followed her gaze.

“I don’t like leaving Tan,” he said, shaking his head. “The Ishien don’t trust him any more than they do me. When we disappear, they will put the pieces together. They’ll know what happened.”

“So will he,” Kiel said. “Rampuri Tan is more dangerous and resourceful than you know. He will find his own way.”

“And if he does not?”

The Csestriim met his eyes. “Then he does not. There is no easy path, Kaden. You can save Triste, or you can save Tan, not both.”