The artificer trotted on, her progress nervous but rapid, her thousand-yard stare no impediment to her progress, especially with Lemon nipping at her heels. Chel’s eyes had to be adjusting to the darkness now; side passages glowed blue along their ceilings, luminescence pale and delicate. He stopped, turned. The ceilings were glowing. Thin ropes of light like lambent beads dangled in clumps from the cave roof, swaying gently in the breeze that travelled the passages, almost like they were breathing. They were beautiful.

He went to step forward, but the artificer had doubled back, one hand on his arm. ‘Come.’

‘What is that?’

‘Worms. For looms. Come. This way.’

He gave them one last look, then followed her and Lemon down the passage, an odd, delicate feeling in his chest, a sense that he had seen something secret and wonderful.

***

They almost didn’t recognize him in the darkness. He looked like a formation of rock, standing motionless in the cool blue glow of the caves. He was slick from moisture, gleaming in the low light, but when he turned Chel realized that he was coated in blood.

‘Fossy? You … all right, pal?’

Lemon approached him sidelong, one hand extended as if he were a jittery horse that might spook. Even Foss’s hair was thick with blood, his braids hanging dark and heavy. For a moment, Chel thought he couldn’t see them, couldn’t recognize them, although his lips moved slowly in the half-light. His eyes were closed. Foss was praying.

He opened his eyes, and slow as breaking dawn a grin lit his face. ‘Am I pleased to see you, my friends. Thought I was going to have to see this lot off myself.’

Lemon touched his arm. Her fingers came away stained. ‘Any of this yours, old man?’

He shrugged, slow, tired. ‘Maybe a little.’

‘Aye, well, fun’s over now, Foss-bot. Friend Lemon has arrived to sweep your glory away.’ She looked down the tunnel, hearing at last the clatter and clink of gathering confessors. ‘What’s this lot you’re speaking of?’

‘Confessors. Came in through the water system.’

‘How many?’ She looked down, noting the slumped forms along the passageway floor. ‘Left.’

‘A lot. Guessing they’re making their move, friend, and this is it.’

She nodded. ‘Aye, right. Well, a bad move it is, no mistake.’ She swung an arm around, stretched her back, reached for a short-axe. ‘How about it, wee bear? You up for a scrap?’

Chel looked from one to the other. His shoulder burned like a forest fire, and he was covered in scrapes and bruises. He throbbed, and was quite sure he was exhausted.

‘Do you reckon we can take them?’ he said.

‘Aye, easy.’

Chel looked to the artificer, who had stayed silent to one side. ‘What do you think?’

She looked him up and down, to the blood-smeared Foss and the wild and dirty Lemon, and shook her head an emphatic no.