The cave was huge, and curved and strange, like being inside the shell of a gigantic mollusk. There was the hole in the ceiling ahead where light filtered down from the place where the storehouse had used to be, illuminating streaks of floating dust. There were piles of rubble below, broken chests and barrels, glass jars and sacks. Then, part of a metal ladder. Hava’s ladder. Giddon moved as quickly as he could with a light tread.

When he rounded a pile of debris and spotted her, tears began to make paths through the grime on his face, because of how nonchalant she looked. She’d propped herself up against a broken barrel with one leg tucked against her torso and the other extended, her ankle trapped under the ladder as she’d said. Blood was sliding down from a gash on her forehead and she blinked up at him, red and copper eyes, in a face white with dust. And she was reading. Calm as calm, with those dangerous metal orbs scattered around her, with the ceiling caving in and no certain rescue, with that heavy metal ladder pressing down so hard on her leg that Giddon, examining it more closely, became frightened that she might lose a foot, Hava had a notebook open before her and was reading.

But he could hear the quickness of her breath. She was in pain, and she was scared.

“Anything good in that book?” Giddon said quietly, grabbing the ladder to either side of her foot and heaving. Nothing happened. It was the longest ladder he’d ever seen—probably the means of entering the cave from the storehouse—and it was trapped under rubble at both ends. It was also slippery with dust.

“You sap,” she responded, watching the tears run down his face. “Was that Katu Cavenda I heard you rescuing?”

“It was.”

“And here I thought I was alone.”

“He was pretty out of it.” Giddon took his coat off, then, deciding it was too thick for his purposes, pulled his shirt over his head.

“I was hoping for a rescue too, not a striptease,” she said, watching as he wrapped his bloody hands with the sleeves of his shirt, then used them as improvised gloves to grip the ladder. Giddon heaved again, muscles of his arms and shoulders straining. The gloves helped. But still, nothing.

“To the best of my ability to decipher these notes,” said Hava conversationally, “the explosive eggs are made using zilfium and a byproduct of silver refining, among other things.”

“Fascinating,” said Giddon. There was nothing in the nearby debris strong enough to use as a lever to free her leg. There was no way to dig a cavity under it, because her leg rested on rock. He studied the rubble mountain at either end of the ladder, then chose the mountain that looked less formidable.