The first line

They escaped from the cistern through the gallery, without leaving the city. The approach to the low exit tightened into a gut practicable to one person at a time. Under fire, passing Sszindi and the girl would have left the others unprotected; Vhaelyn folded the group into an abandoned storage room, away from the main passage.

Vhaelyn closed the door behind them. Two guards were injured. No one was dead. The old drow was called Sszindi; the teenager, Pell. The girl did not give her name. The other patrolmen still held the accesses to the tank. Their muffled calls passed through the door while they divided the corners.

The most seriously affected had received a stone splinter in the thigh. Vhaelyn tied a ternose above the wound, then asked the other guard to maintain the pressure while she rinsed the blood.

"You're not going to leave us here?" asked the injured man.

"No. The others still hold the accesses and will join you as soon as the passage is safe. But I can't carry you both."

"Will the temple send someone?"

Vhaelyn glanced at the door. "The temple will send someone to ask questions. I'll get you out of here first."

The other guard, a young drow with a notched cheek, helped him sit down. She looked at Zaelyra with an embarrassed hostility.

"You're going to leave and let us explain why?"

"You won't have to invent an answer," says Zaelyra. "You have been attacked. Your companion is injured. We are leaving."

"What if the Matron asks who let us do it?"

"Say it was my choice," Vhaelyn replied. "I ordered the retreat when the arrows arrived. I order you to hold this room until the patrol joins you, then enter through the north door as soon as your companion can walk. I will answer my itinerary in front of Mother."

The young guard did not answer, but she tightened the bandage to the right height.

"You let them go," Vhaelyn told Zaelyra.

"I prevented them from being captured."

"You have disobeyed a direct order."

"Yes."

Vhaelyn looked at her for a long time. "I can't fix this answer."

"I'm not asking you."

"But you want me to choose your side."

"I want you to choose yours."

The older sister looked down at her hands. They were barely shaking.

The girl handed the box to Nym, without taking her eyes off him. He studied the maps it contained. "Veyr Waystation is real. This road leads there, provided you bypass the toll station. There are two days of walking left. Then he returned the box to him.

"Not yet," said Vhaelyn. "We must first get out of the control zone. And I won't follow a line on a map without knowing who drew it."

The door opened. Rhylor entered, escorted by a single guard. He still wore the tunic of his quarters, but had taken back his belt.

"I heard the alarm," he said. "The Matron asked me to come."

"Did she free you? Zaelyra asked.

"She asked me to bring her daughter back."

"Which one?" said Nym.

Rhylor doesn't smile. "This is what I came to discover."

The guard who accompanied him put on the box a sealed tablet of the marks of the House and the temple. The order demanded a return before the ignition of Narbondel. Zesstra offered them one last chance: return with the fugitives, deliver the maps and present the incident as an ambush of smugglers.

Sszindi lowered his head. The girl pressed the box against her. Vhaelyn read the order and then handed it to Zaelyra. She checked the two seals before returning it to him.

"If we come back, they will be questioned," she says. "Maybe not condemned. Maybe."

"What if we leave?"

"The House will declare us traitors."

Rhylor detached the plate from the open circle of his collar and placed it near the tablet. "I won't tell you what to choose. I have already chosen quite often instead of others."

"Then choose for yourself," said Zaelyra. "You're coming?"

"Until the next crossroads. There, ask me again."

She didn't know if this was the answer she was hoping for. She accepted it without writing it as a certainty.

Zaelyra looked at the maps. A line had been scratched, then traced by an unknown hand. The road was not safe. She was not free. But it existed.

In the distance, the first rumble of Narbondel announced the new hour.

"We will resume the return route to the crossroads," says Vhaelyn. "The guards must believe that we are returning to the House."

His gaze went from the young guard to the bandage of his companion. The return route was true to the crossroads; the rest, she does not say in front of them.

"You will enter through the north door with the patrol badge. Do not give the names of Sszindi or Pell."

"What if the Matron asks where you are?" asked the young guard.

"Tell him what you know."

"She will know that you let us go."

"Yes."

The young guard looked down at his companion, then raised them. "I'll take him to the post. But I don't promise to lie to the Matron."

"I'm not asking you," Vhaelyn replied. "Only not to follow us."

Zaelyra looked at her sister. Their plan was not a clean leak. Two guards would leave with an injured person and a truth that exposed them. She would have wanted to offer them a less dangerous version; she had no right to impose another one on them.

She handed them the small map of the north corridor. "This is the path that avoids the scree. Keep it after your report."

The guard took her. "Why?"

"So that you don't have to believe a map that shows only one exit."

She pointed to the official map. "The House guards expect us to return through the north passage. We will leave them a track to the guard post. It will have to seem credible without leading to hidden families."

"And then? Nym asked.

"We will take the low exit to the crossroads. There, you will continue to the Relay. I will resume the route back to the House alone."

"So you're coming with us?"

"Up to the crossroads. No further."

Zaelyra understood: if Vhaelyn came home alone, Zesstra could claim that the eldest had tried to bring back the younger one.

"You will tell them that we have escaped you."

"I'll tell them you chose to leave."

"It's not the same thing."

"No. But it will be true enough for them to believe me."

Rhylor held out to the group of dark cloaks taken from the reserve. "The smallest in the middle. The injured between two people. If someone falls, we only stop when the passage is forbidden."

"You look like you've already done that," says Zaelyra.

"I've already failed to do it."

He gave no further explanation.

The girl stiffens. Nym looked away. Rhylor did not move.

Vhaelyn squats in front of the girl. "I'm not abandoning you. But don't ask me to pretend that I'm going with you."

"I won't ask you to justify yourself to me," Zaelyra replied. "Only to come back whole."

The young guard called his companion. She had not promised to lie; she had only agreed not to pursue them. That would be enough to give them a few minutes in advance.

Zaelyra thanked Vhaelyn with a nod. His sister saw him, but did not answer. They still had a corridor to cross before separating.

They left the room through a service door. Behind them, Menzoberranzan continued her day, vast and splendid, convinced that all her roads belonged to her.

In Zaelyra's hand, the first line of the new itinerary trembled under the light of the lamp.

It did not yet lead to freedom. She was leading off the map.