The guide's signal

Zaelyra hit the wall with the handle of her dagger. Three shots, a pause, then a fourth.

They waited.

The signal came back, closer this time.

Nym stuck his ear against the stone, then straightened up. "It's not a noise from the gallery. It passes through a metal duct."

"Does anyone answer us? Orl asked.

"Someone, or the water pressure."

Zaelyra knocked again. Three strokes, one pause, only one. The answer came twice, at equal intervals.

"It doesn't look like a person," says Pell.

"Or to a person who matters," replied Nym.

They looked for a conduit behind the stones until Tazri discovered a small copper tube, clogged with mud. The blows traveled there more easily than in the rock. The system had to connect the tanks teams to the relay.

"So someone heard it there," says Zaelyra.

"Maybe. Nym cleaned the tube. "But we don't know who, or if the passage is still connected."

Zaelyra drew a question mark on the map. She wanted to write "Rhylor", but the name would have turned hope into proof.

Nym found a stone shutter hidden under the mud. He opened it with the help of OR. Beyond, a gallery descended to a pocket of dry rock. The ceiling was low, but the walls had guiding lines: open circles engraved at hand height.

"This passage was built for the relay teams," says Zaelyra.

"Or for those who wanted them to come back," replied Nym.

The corridor leads to an alcove pierced with a narrow slot. Zaelyra looked through the opening. She saw part of the relay courtyard, but not the main door. Shadows ran between the buildings. A cry rose, immediately muffled.

Nym touched his arm. "You can't know who's still there."

"I know who is not with us."

"Rhylor chose to stay."

"I can't decide that he chose to die."

The sentence came out faster than she would have liked. She was also afraid of finding Rhylor dead than of discovering that he had chosen not to leave with them. The two possibilities were different, but neither belonged to him.

Nym does not contradict her. "So we will look for a passage that allows us to return without condemning those who have already left."

"You said I didn't put people before the plan."

"I still say that you don't always know how to do both. But you try to ask before you decide. This is an improvement."

"You could try to congratulate people without reminding them of their faults."

"I could."

He didn't do it.

Zaelyra tried to look at the court like a map. Two guards held the north entrance. A lantern went out near the well. The attackers had found the west door; they had not yet taken the central building.

"We can open the passage from the inside," she says. "If the families reach this alcove, they will leave without crossing the courtyard."

"What if he is kept? Orl asked.

"So we will warn them before they commit to it."

Nym sighed. "You still don't know how to put people before the plan."

"I'm trying to do both."

Tazri indicated a second series of more recent traits. They went up to a trapdoor hidden under an empty tank. Zaelyra understood that they could reach the courtyard from behind, but that they would have to cross a room below.

Nym examined the hatch without touching it. "It opens upwards. If someone has put weight on it, we will not be able to move it from here."

Tazri took out a small corner of wood from his box. She slipped it into the groove, then turned it. A click was heard above them.

"Have you already taken this passage? Zaelyra asked.

Tazri shook his head. She had only found the mechanism on one of her drawings.

"So we don't know if the room is free," says Orl.

"No," Zaelyra replied. "We only know that the trap opens."

She asked Nym to stay at the bottom of the ladder and listen. Zaelyra climbed three steps, stopped, then went back down. No noise came from above. On the second attempt, she saw under the hatch a line of light that trembled to the rhythm of a flame.

"There is a lamp," she whispered.

"That of a guard?"

"Or of an inhabitant."

They decided not to bring up Tazri first. The girl protested silently, tapping her finger at the map she had drawn. Zaelyra handed it to him.

"You know the brands better than we do. But we don't know what's in the room. Show me what your drawing can't guarantee."

Tazri observed the line, then added a small circle around the lamp. She then put her finger on Zaelyra and Nym, then on the hatch.

"The two of us first? Nym asked.

Tazri nodded.

The decision did not come from the experience of a single person. It came from what everyone could see and what no one could assure.

Tazri stared at Zaelyra, then shook his head.

"Do you want to come with me?"

The girl nodded.

Nym opened his mouth to protest, but Tazri had already taken the lamp.

"Then you stay behind me," says Zaelyra. "If I say to leave, you leave."

Tazri nodded his head without promise.

"Orl, Sszindi and Pell remain in the alcove," says Zaelyra. "Nym, you check the exit and pass those who arrive. Tazri accompanies me."

The hatch opened into a storage room. Two guards were searching the shelves. The first wore the colors of Xil’Nrae; the other, a chain mail without a coat of arms. They didn't see Zaelyra come out of the shadows.

She could have attacked them. Instead, she threw a pebble into the opposite corridor. The noise drew them away from the door.

Tazri sneaked behind her and unlocked the door. In the courtyard, a handful of refugees were running towards the cistern. Brakka guided them, an axe in hand.

"This way! Zaelyra shouted.

Brakka recognized his voice and diverted the group to the reserve. As the survivors descended, Zaelyra counted the faces. Six, eight, eleven.

Rhylor was not among them.