The brakes screeched. A high, grinding shriek echoed off stone and root, then cut off with a jolt that snapped Zora's neck forward.

He stirred awake, scratching the back of his head with lazy fingers. Sleep in Ifas' carriage had been thin and spotty, the kind of half-conscious slumber one would get on a fast-moving vehicle. Carriages weren't beds. They were barely chairs. His back had protested the entire week's journey in the tunnels.

The horizontal panel on the front of the carriage scraped open with a dull clack.

"We're here," Ifas called through the slit, voice chipper despite the stale air. "End o' the line, sirs."

On the seat across, Enki opened his eyes. Just opened them. Not a blink, not a stretch, not a breath of exertion.

Zora rubbed his temples. True to his word, Enki hadn't eaten, drank, or really slept the way normal humans had to. Seven days and nights through the earth's bowel, and the boy hadn't so much as chewed a nut or exhaled with fatigue. Zora, meanwhile, had eaten six hundred points' worth of roasted Mutant-Class bug meat, kept count of every direction they'd twisted through, and had tried—unsuccessfully—to extract anything resembling a personality from the boy.

All he'd gotten in return were thin answers.

"I am from Immanu."

"I was a Bullet Ant Soldier."

"I am Enki."

Beyond that? Silence. Like dragging a net through water and bringing up only silt.

I'll figure out this kid eventually.

For the time being, the two of them stepped out of the carriage. Dirt crunched beneath Zora's boots. They'd stopped at a point where the natural tunnel curved into something less natural: an opening torn crudely into a circular stone wall made of old terracotta bricks.

Zora leaned towards the hole, listening for echoes. Trickles of water. A distant groan of pressure in the pipes. The industrial runoff clinging to the reek of human waste.

The telltale wet stink of civilization's underside.

"Ah," he muttered, pulling back. "Sewage tunnel."

He rapped the tip of his staff against the stone for more confirmation. Hollow, then dense, then hollow again. This sewage tunnel had to be the end point of where the ants were digging. Clever bastards, they were. They weren't just tunnelling at random. They must've been aiming for the sewage infrastructure beneath cities, weaving their own highways into humanity's veins.

This was something the Regional Lords would love to know more about so they could put an end to their sewage systems being penetrated.

… Not that the Noble-Bloods would be quick to act.

Larger towns and cities were always slow to recognise danger beneath their own floors. In Zora's experience, it usually took something exploding through a manor floor mid-sermon before anyone paid attention to what lay underfoot, but he imagined the Nohoch Lord would immediately send a small army down into these tunnels to cave them in the moment he alerted the lord to their presence.

Beside him, Enki was already moving. The boy didn't so much as glance back at the carriage as he walked into the filth-choked tunnel like it was a quiet hallway in a school.

Zora quickly turned to Ifas, lifting a brow. "It might be troublesome getting your giant silver ant carriage back up to the surface. We'd have to dig up, and while Enki and I might be able to—"

Ifas cut him off with a grunt. "No need for that."

Still perched on the driver's seat, the man reached into his coat and pulled out what looked, absurdly, like a long kitchen knife. Long enough to be called a shortsword, but not thick enough to be one. Without flourish, he hopped off the seat, stepped up onto the giant silver ant's thorax, and then stabbed it straight through the ant's neck.

The silver ant let out a muted click—more surprise than pain—then collapsed in place with a semi-metallic thud.

Zora frowned. Enki paused mid-step, turning just enough to glance over his shoulder.

They both stared, expressionless.

Ifas tugged the knife free with a grunt, gave it a sharp flick to spray all the blood off, and slid it back into its sheath like a man sheathing a soup spoon.

"Giant silver ants are a dime a dozen down in these parts," he said casually, wiping his palms on his trousers. "I'll grab a new one from the Tamera, easy. I'll get one of the better breeds. With what you've been paying me, Mister Fabre, I might even spring for one of those mutated triple-mandible bastards with extra leg joints. They'll make for a smoother ride, those."

…

As Zora nodded absently, the three of them moved forward, shoes scuffing softly over the uneven stone. They'd all had enough of earthen tunnels.

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The sewage canal they were following beside them gurgled like a sick throat. Something was swimming in the water, but not fast enough to make him flinch. He walked with one hand trailing lightly along the wall, his staff clicking and tapping now and then, his ears straining not toward sound, but to the absence of it where echoes grew shallow and where the drip of condensation cut out mid-fall.

These sewage tunnels were extensive, that was for sure.

Ifas clomped a few steps ahead, humming some tune off-key, knife still faintly slick at his side. He glanced around like a man sizing up property for resale. Enki, on the other hand, walked like he didn't need his eyes at all. His steps were slow, steady, and always landing with the faintest of shivers. Zora could tell the boy was feeling the ground. Not the air, not the walls—just the floor, listening through his bare feet. Sometimes, he tilted his head like he was hearing something distant through the rock.

Then, without changing expression, Enki said, "There is a city above us."

"... That's right," Zora replied. "We're directly beneath Nohoch Ik'Balam, the Regional Capital of the Salaqa Region. Have you ever been here before?"

No reaction.

Zora waited a second longer before smiling to himself. The boy had probably lived most of his life underground or in warzones. Geography meant as much to him as poetry did to a corpse.

"You'll like it here, then," Zora said, tone as dry as ever. "Temperate air. Dry weather. And the Noble-Bloods are only half-rotten, discounting the Salaqa Household.."

Enki didn't react.

Behind them, Ifas sniffed and said, "Smells like dead rats and bureaucracy already."

They walked on.

The tunnel curved slightly, splitting at intersections where other sewage lines bled into the main. Zora tracked it all with his ears. Echoes bouncing. Moisture clinging. The slight vibration underfoot as pressure flushed from one pipe to another. He could hear where the city was built heavily above—denser foot traffic, heavier infrastructure—and where the gaps in construction made room for parks or poorer districts. It was all math and music to him, though he couldn't say he was rather proficient in either of the two subjects.

Eventually, they passed an old maintenance ladder. Zora paused beneath it and tilted his head. The grate above was rusted over, the lock left unattended for at least five years.

The sound of life was thick overhead.

"This where we go up?" Ifas asked as all three of them crowded around the base of the ladder, looking up.

They were beneath a poorer district now. Zora could hear it in the footsteps—metal-toed clogs instead of soft leather boots. The voices above were less bored, more angry. Nobility had a way of muttering with condescension even when ordering pastries, and he didn't have any of that.

It should be safe to ascend here.

With a small "pop off", the lock shattered and the grate popped a little into the air. The first breath of surface air hit him like an old friend.

Save for Ifas, neither Zora nor Enki really needed to climb up the ladder—Zora could at least flutter five metres high with his wings, and Enki could just wormhole out—but Zora climbed the ladder with his hands and feet until he was the first one out onto the cobbles, feeling the sudden shift of warmth on his face.

It was well into the afternoon on the surface, so he yawned long and slow, stretching his shoulders.

"Feels good to be back above the grave," he muttered.

Behind him, the heavy clank of boots announced Ifas pushing himself up through the grate, grunting and mumbling about twisted knees. Enki came next, emerging without a sound.

"Well," Ifas said, brushing dirt off his sleeves as he looked around the cramped alley they'd emerged into, "I ain't waitin' around. Tamera's got ants bigger than the one I got, and I'm thinking it's about time I rode something with actual armoured legs again."

He slapped the sheath of his knife like a promise and gave Zora a quick nod. "If you need me, Mister Fabre—"

Zora held up the slim whistle dangling from a leather cord at his throat: The death whistle carved from blackbone, small enough to hide in a child's palm.

"I'll blow it," he said plainly. "Twice, if I want hot chocolate too."

Ifas grinned wide. "Don't die before I get back."

Then he was gone. The shady man slipped into the alley's shade and vanished with the ease of a gutter rat returning to its maze. Zora didn't hear another footstep after that.

… Hm.

Leaving the driver be for now, he turned slightly toward Enki. "We should head to the Salaqa Manor for now," he said, adjusting his collar. "The Regional Lord is my benefactor, and he is also hunting the Magicicada Witch. I don't doubt he'll want to meet you—"

"People are coming," Enki replied curtly.

Zora raised a brow. Half-second later, he heard them too: bootfalls, rhythmic and organized, closing in from the east and west. Both ends of the alley.

He noticed them before even I could hear them?

Zora simply sighed and folded his hands behind his back. "Next time, do me the favor of warning your blind friend before we're boxed in."

Enki didn't reply to that.

Then came the clink of armor.

A moment later, warmth on his face dimmed as a carriage rolled to a halt at the alley's mouth, its wheels padded, muffled. The kind of hush only nobility could afford. Surrounding it were the sharp, clipped bootfalls of lightly armoured Salaqa soldiers, all breaths moving as one.

The carriage door creaked open.

A familiar scent hit Zora first: fresh oil and bitter soap, lacquered wood and dried ink. Then a familiar voice followed.

"It has been a while, Thousand Tongue," Machi said blankly, stepping out of the carriage with both hands clasped before her. "I hope your return trip was smooth and without issues?"

"Steward of the Salaqa Hearth," Zora said, turning slightly toward the head attendant with a small nod. "You're back already? Last I checked, you and the heiress were still in the northwest."

"We returned two days ago," she said curtly. "My master requests your presence. A meal and a place to rest await you both."

And of course the steward found them. He hadn't expected her so quickly, but then, Machi was good at her job. She'd probably been running that manor since Zora was still misplacing his satchels in Amadeus Academy's lecture halls.

She gestured toward the carriage, its door yawning open like a gilt invitation. Inside, Zora could already hear the softness of cushions, the scent of spicewood incense, and the subtle ticking of a precision-bred timepiece mounted in the carriage ceiling. A ride designed to pamper. Nothing like Ifas' bumpy, bug-pulled monstrosity.

But when he turned to Enki, he was decently overjoyed to learn they both shared the same face of disdain towards the carriage.

In perfect synchrony, they both shook their heads.

"No more carriages," Zora said simply.

"We will walk," Enki said.

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