“I’m happy to help,” Chastity said.

“Uh, sure. Thank you,” he replied.

We edged closer to the place where the drain was empty. The mist was flowing down from the street above, and the entire area had changed. No ice, no water, just walls with peeling wallpaper, floor that might have been hardwood, and scattered children’s blocks.

Parian’s snake slithered past us, the knotted material sloshing through water and ice on its way to the area, then scraping against the floor, depositing moisture on the surface.

As we drew nearer, ready to move across it, the walls pressed in. They were wallpapered, but there wasn’t any wall behind the wallpaper. Something fat and wet like a tongue pressed in, moisture blotting out to color the surface as it bulged. The thudding from behind the walls was evident in how the fleshy bulge throbbed.

All with one singular heartbeat.

Foil had her rapier out, pointed at it but not penetrating, while the others hurried forward. Precipice was one of the last to cross. He held up his scanner, aimed at the bulge, then passed his hand between scanner and bulge. He startled a bit.

“Go,” I hissed the word.

He wasted no time.

The thudding from behind was mixed up with added impacts as Lord of Loss touched down somewhere not too far away.

We hurried down the drain tunnel, putting the effect behind us.

“Lord of Loss is close,” I whispered, as I floated to catch up with the group. I saw Foil and Chastity look back at me. “Familiar with him?”

“Shapeshifting breaker,” Foil said. “Big, brutish.”

“Repeated motions are more effective,” I said.

“That’s always the case,” Chastity said. “Find what works and keep doing that.”

“It’s more the case for him, I assume,” Precipice said.

“He’s got size on his side too,” Chastity said.

Precipice turned his head, giving her a long look. Chastity’s face was barely visible, with none of the flashlights aimed directly at it, but I could see the smile.

“We’re close to the first building that we thought might be theirs,” Precipice said. “If we’re going aboveground, we should do it further down the street here. There might be a side tunnel.”

“Good,” I said. “Nice work, keeping an eye on that.”

“Lookout’s stuff, not mine,” he said.

“You did figure something out with your stuff, didn’t you?” I asked. “Your scanner picked something up.”

He turned to look at me. He nearly tripped a second later, but Chastity put a hand to his shoulder.

“Yeah,” he said. He raised his phone, and tapped the screen with his thumb. The feed of numbers and movement of the graph changed, changing from red on a black background to yellow, instead. He scrolled, and the readings went backward in time, flowing the opposite way, tinted green as they did.

“Means nothing to me,” I said.