I only breathe freely after we step through the doorway into the dark tunnel we used on our way in, sliding the door shut behind us as we seal ourselves away from the pristine whitewashed walls of Lengard.

There’s only one problem.

“Where the hell is Arryn?” Cami demands, her hands leaving Ward’s feet to rest on her hips. “You don’t think she left without us, do you?”

While Arryn has offered little warmth toward us, I can’t imagine she would leave us stranded here. But she also should have returned long before Cami and I did, her journey to the breakout Speaker’s cell nowhere near as challenging as ours ended up being.

Unless …

Unless something went wrong with her task, too.

“Stay here,” I tell Cami. “I’ll go and look for her.”

“You don’t know your way around Lengard.”

“I don’t need to.” I pull the compass from my pocket and wave it in the air before canceling my command for Ward to hover. With him now resting on the ground, I concentrate on what I know of Arryn—alarmingly little as that might be—and say, “Find Arryn.”

Just like earlier, light flares and the needle on the compass spins before settling on a direction that will hopefully lead me right to her.

“Be back soon,” I tell Cami, trying to sound confident.

“Be careful, Lyss.”

I slide the door open and force myself to throw a grin at her over my shoulder. “Careful’s my middle name.”

Then I step out into the corridor, sealing her and Ward into the darkness behind me.

It’s more nerve-racking this time, wandering the hallways on my own. It reminds me of that night a week ago when I went to infiltrate Vanik’s lab. I wonder where he is now, why his lab was trashed. Is he even at Lengard anymore, or has he moved his experiments elsewhere? And what Ward said about his master’s “success”—does that mean Vanik has managed to splice my gene sequence? Is he out there building his own Speaker army right now? Is he a Creator himself?

I have too many questions, and the only person who can answer them is unconscious and lying on a filthy floor in a dark tunnel. Even when Ward awakens, he’ll still be unwilling to cooperate until we can find a way to free him from Manning’s control. The only hope I have is that Kael will be able to help me bring Ward back into his right mind. If that doesn’t happen …

It doesn’t bear thinking about, not now—not yet.

I hurry along the corridors, gliding under the halogen lights and sliding past closed doors. I see no one, I hear nothing, as I follow the directions from the compass in my hands.

Until suddenly, I do hear something.

Footsteps.