Chapter 677: Closed Exit
Before they could even make a move, the sound of a scraping chair came from downstairs, and everyone stopped.
Elion listened, his hand resting near Kurogoroshi, until the sound was followed by a few slow footsteps and the familiar creak of the front door.
Through his eyes, he watched the woman pause beneath the entrance to speak with one of the guards.
"Go," he whispered.
Cole led them into the rear passage, with Mayumi close behind.
The staircase was narrow enough that they had to descend in single file, their shoulders brushing the walls while the worn wood gave occasional, treacherous creaks beneath their weight.
Elion went last.
He kept his attention divided between the people ahead and the movement at the front of the building, waiting for a shout or a sudden change in the guards’ behaviour.
At the bottom, Cole eased the rear door open.
Cold air entered the passage, carrying the smell of damp stone and stagnant water.
Beyond it lay a small courtyard enclosed by high walls, its uneven paving interrupted by weeds and a shallow drainage channel running toward the gate.
They crossed without speaking.
Yaana stayed close to Uta, her earlier energy subdued beneath the tension of their departure, while Nora followed Maya with her staff held tightly against her side. Mayumi paused near the gate until everyone had passed through, then drew it shut with painstaking care.
The side street was scarcely wider than the courtyard.
Buildings rose on either side, their upper floors projecting overhead until only a slender strip of the cavern remained visible.
A few lamps burned beside shuttered windows, but their light reached little beyond the doorways, leaving most of the passage submerged in a cool, bluish gloom.
Elion moved to the front.
He remembered the route they had taken from the entrance, though approaching it from a different street made the town considerably more difficult to navigate.
Stairways vanished beneath buildings, narrow bridges crossed overhead, and several passages ended abruptly at walls that looked almost identical to those they had just passed.
He used his eyes sparingly, checking one stretch of road at a time.
Each inhabited doorway made him uneasy.
A person standing behind a window might have been an ordinary resident unable to sleep. They might also have been a pair of eyes through which something far more dangerous could watch the group passing below.
Elion had no intention of discovering which.
At the next junction, he raised a hand and brought everyone to a halt. A man stood farther along the adjoining street, leaning beneath a lamp while slowly working at something between his fingers.
The thread attached to him extended above the roofs.
Elion watched until the man turned his back, then guided the others through a narrow gap between two buildings.
They emerged beside a water channel and followed it beneath a low arch, where the sound of their footsteps mingled with the sluggish murmur of the current.
The town’s warmth had vanished from Elion’s perception entirely.
The little balconies, the hanging plants and the lamps beneath the eaves had become obstacles around which they needed to move, each concealing a possible observer.
Eventually, the houses began to thin.
Ahead, the cavern wall rose beyond a stretch of open ground, its enormous surface marked by pale mineral streaks. Elion recognised the arrangement of the nearby buildings first, then the small stall beside which a woman had hurried away from Eva when they arrived.
His pace quickened slightly.
"We’re close," he whispered.
Cole looked past him, relief briefly crossing his face before he forced it away. The others followed as Elion led them toward the place where the little girl had brought them through.
The entrance looked disappointingly ordinary.
A broad, rounded section of dark stone stood within the cavern wall, its uneven surface bearing the same pale veins Elion remembered from the boulder outside.
There was no visible doorway or anything that suggested it concealed a passage to the ruins above.
He stopped before it.
He simply looked at the stone for a moment, remembering the brief resistance against his face and the sudden rush of sound when he entered.
Eva had passed through without much difficulty, and he had followed with little more than a foolish jump.
He lifted his hand, and his palm met cold rock.
Elion pressed a little harder, then moved his fingers across the surface, searching for the strange yielding sensation he had felt before, but nothing of the sort happened.
Behind him, Mayumi approached and stopped beside him.
"Are you sure this is the right place?"
"Yes."
His answer came out a bit harsher than he had intended, and he forced himself to breathe before stepping forward. This time, he put his shoulder against the stone and pushed.
It remained immovable.
The passage that had admitted them so easily might as well have never existed.
Elion stepped back, his expression turning grim.
Maya studied his face before approaching the stone herself. She placed her fingertips against it, waited a moment, then slowly withdrew her hand.
"Well?" Cole asked.
Elion looked toward him.
"It’s closed."
The words seemed to strip the little remaining hope from the group. Nora glanced back toward the street, while Yaana moved closer to her brother, her fingers catching his sleeve.
Elion turned his attention upward, searching the cavern wall above the entrance. There had to be something else they could try, another passage, or maybe some overlooked detail that might...
A soft laugh sounded behind them, and his head snapped quickly toward the source.
A slender figure stood beneath the arch they had crossed a moment earlier, his bare feet resting on the pale stone.
Black markings covered the exposed skin beneath his neck, and his finely shaped face wore an expression of mild amusement.
His eyes were closed.
’I didn’t even hear him approach...’ A deep frown marred Elion’s face as he regarded the man. His expression darkened even further when he gauged the man’s rank.
"How unfortunate," the young man said, his voice carrying easily through the empty space. "I was hoping to find you at your lodgings."
Mayumi’s hand closed around her sword, and Cole shifted slightly to give himself room. to move as soon as the man so much as showed any intention to attack.
The young man inclined his head toward them, very much aware of every movement despite his lowered eyelids.
He opened his eyes, but there was nothing within the sockets. The young man’s smile widened as he regarded them through those vacant hollows.
"I have been told you would like to meet the master. She would be delighted to receive you," he said. "So, please, follow me."