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  "Cinda is a lovely name. I'm sure she'll be comfortable with us soon," I say. Unlike Yana, I'm not afraid of Cinda. She's given me no reason to be. If she does anything threatening, I'll reassess that by means of my sword.

  "Rin, help me. Hungry." Yana needs me now, time to pass the journal back to Shan so he can finish reading. Maybe he'll learn to forgive Daelis like I have.

  Day 18, part 2

  Hey Mom,

  I hope you don't mind that I'm writing in your book. I finished reading it and wanted to talk to you, but you were asleep with Yana. And I need look busy so Daelis doesn't ramble at me again. And I don't want him to overhear what I want to say about him.

  I don't like him or trust him. Please don't fall in love with him again. He hurt you before, remember? He lied to you and abandoned you when you were vulnerable. Then you got stuck all alone with me and a broken heart. Aunt Nora said you were a totally different person after that happened. I don't know who you were before, but I love you as I've always known you, and as you are now. Don't let him get too close or he might break you again. I don't think there's anything he can do to make me trust him, so please don't try to convince me that he's any different now than he was when he left us.

  You don't need Daelis, just like you didn't need Tessen's dad or Ragan. Well, Ragan isn't the best example. You two loved each other and he was good to us. I miss him sometimes and I know you do, too. Anyway, I get that we're all just trying to survive down here and somehow get home. That's probably why he's pretending to be a decent person even though he's not. We're in close quarters and dependent on each other, but things will be different if we make it home. I expect him to go right back to being Lord Goldtree, charming liar and absent father. Twice, I've now learned. I guess I have a half-sister somewhere. Maybe I'll meet her someday.

  Speaking of sisters, I'm glad you rescued Yana. She's a sweet little kid. She's so scared and so hopeful, and she needs to be happy. She told me she'd never seen a book until your journal, so I can't wait to show her the library at the University. It's one of my favorite places in the world, and I've been spending a lot of time there lately.

  Oh, that made me remember something. I don't know if it's relevant to anything, but if I don't write it out now, I'll forget again. You told me a couple months ago that my mind is a hodgepodge of random facts but sometimes I don't notice the obvious.

  There has been a girl in the library recently. Last three or four weeks. I don't know who she is, but she caught my eye because she's a half-elf and she's the only other one I've seen at the University, aside from Master Stonebear. Dark hair, dark eyes. I'm not sure how old she is because it's hard to tell with people like us. I caught her watching me a couple times, and I think she followed me around. Can't prove that, just a feeling. I tried to talk to her once, but she vanished before I got close enough. She dropped a book, though. Geometrical Properties of Enchanted Minerals. I asked a couple people about her, and no one knew who she was. Since she showed up around the time you disappeared, I wonder if she has any connection to the Jarrah. Random thought, probably completely irrelevant, but you taught me not to discount my ideas just because I'm afraid of what other people might think of them.

  So, on another tangent, we've been worried about you since you didn't come home. Everyone's afraid you're dead. Grandpa blames himself because you were off doing a trading job for him. Grandma gets teary when anyone mentions you. Tessen hasn't slept well lately and he burned himself in the smith shop because he was so exhausted he wasn't paying attention. He's okay. It's just a line on his forearm that will scar a little. Aunt Nora has gotten clingy with us and always wants to know where we're going and with whom. I guess that's justified, considering that now I'm lost in the same place you are. Everyone at home loves you and misses you. I wonder if I'm already on their list of people to mourn.

  You wrote something about how time doesn't feel right down here, and you're right. I think your days must be longer than they would be if you had the sun to guide you. Your day marker says 18, but you were last something like thirty-six days ago in Greeble. Probably has no relevance other than acknowledging a quirk in time perception. Maybe I'll research that more when we get home.

  Now I've gone from if to when. You're an odd optimist, Mom, and it's catching. Isn't it weird for an ex-mercenary, sometimes-assassin, currently-kidnapped textile trader to be an optimist? Especially after all that's happened. Keep it up, Mom. The rest of us need that light. Just don't fall in love with Daelis.

  I need to finish this up now. Cinda keeps gesturing toward me. I think she wants to talk more. She's interesting. She may have been a slave, but she's had some sort of education. She said she can read and write even though it's forbidden for Raxan and Uldru, and her language usage is much better than Yana's. I want to find out why. And no, I'm not afraid she's going to eat me. I've got my dagger up my sleeve just in case she tries, though.

  Sleep well and I love you,

  Shan

  Day 18, part 3

  My sweet Shan,

  I love you and I'm proud of you. Don't worry about Daelis. I consider him my friend by necessity, and nothing more. Perhaps friend isn't the right word. Family. He's your father and Yana has adopted us both as her parents, so I think we're stuck with him for a while.

  I wish you weren't here. I wish you were home and safe. But you're not, and now my goal is to get you out of here alive and unharmed. In the months before you were born, I was afraid your existence was my biggest failure. There were people who insisted that I was a stupid little ninny who had ruined both my life and yours. For a while, I believed them instead of my parents, who embraced me and told me everything would turn out well. I was young and alone, and the person I loved and who I thought loved us had forsaken us, so I felt crushed by the world and sometimes by you. I loved you all along, but I was also terrified of you.

  That changed when you were born. I was the first to touch you, and the midwife only offered a guiding hand as I pulled you to my chest and held you for the first time. My fears and apprehensions extinguished as I took in your face. You were mine and I was overcome with a fierce need to protect you. You weren't my failure, you were my accomplishment. I felt you grow inside me, I struggled through your birth, and now the most beautiful person I'd ever seen looked up at me from my arms. I couldn't regret my relationship with Daelis when you were the result. Any love I feel for him now is because he gave me you.

  I need to be honest with you. I've always tried to be, except those times you asked me about your father. Right now, though, honesty means admitting that it is unlikely we'll survive this. That doesn't mean we won't try. Sylleths never give up on the impossible. Remember the story about how my great-great-grandfather, Dorian Sylleth, rose from being an orphaned child begging in the West Bottoms gutters to become the most successful merchant in the Hawthorn Heights? That spark of ambition was passed down through the generations to us. We've already proven we can rise above the circumstances we are given. Let's keep making the spirits of our ancestors proud. Let's go home, but if we don't make it, we're going to fight until we can't anymore, until the last breath leaves our lungs and the afterlife grabs us into her taloned embrace. Let's show those Jarrah that we're worthy of our names, worthy of respect and honor. Sylleth is an old word meaning ascent. Let's live up to it and ascend into the sunlight.

  Help me protect Yana if you can. She's a fierce little girl, but she's scared and she was all alone until she found me. I'll give my life for her if it comes to that, and I know Daelis will, too. Just like we will for you. We both would have given up a long time ago if we didn't have her, and now that you've unfortunately found yourself here, we have twice as many reasons to keep fighting.

  I don't trust your new friend yet, but I haven't met her, either. Let her know we'll help her get to a place where she is no longer a slave and she can live as she pleases. If she's not ready to talk to us yet, she can follow. Closely, since we only have two lanterns and I don't want to leave he
r in the dark alone. Tell her we'll sleep here tonight, and then we'll leave this place and go into the tunnels in the morning. Or whatever time of day it might be. Keep your dagger at hand, always. We don't know what horrors stalk the deep.

  Time to eat, time to rest. Let's see exactly what Daelis is carving into that soapstone wall. It looks like our names. That graffiti will take eons to wear away without any sort of weather beating on it. It might be our little piece of immortality down here.

  I love you, always and beyond the end of time,

  Mom

  WE WERE HERE.

  WE WERE ALIVE.

  -DAELIS GOLDTREE

  -KATRIN SYLLETH

  -SHANNON SYLLETH

  -YANA SYLLETH-GOLDTREE

  -CINDA

  YEAR 3891 (5TH AGE)

  Day 19

  Into the darkness. Again. Soon.

  We're waiting for the kids to get themselves together so we can find somewhere different to die. Yana just woke up and is busy hunting snails. Shan is still asleep. He looks too peaceful and comfortable to be trapped in an underground cave. He's always been a sound sleeper. He's... he's more like his father than I ever wanted to admit. Maybe that's not such a bad thing. Daelis has proven himself somewhat decent and useful, and most of what Shan inherited is from the best side of him.

  "You haven't said a word all morning. Has he turned you against me?" Daelis asks. He stares at the crumbled bread in his palm. "I can't wait to eat fruit again. I miss strawberries. And apples, especially apples. How about you?"

  "Don't remind me, and no. But remember, I place him far, far above you on the ranks of who I care about." I rub my temples, one at a time. I have a vague headache, probably a residual effect of the sleeping drugs. Daelis's aristocratic lilt is grating my nerves right now. "Cherries. I want cherries. And a really good cup of white tea. No, make that a whole kettle of it."

  "I'll give you an entire orchard and a tea shop if you get us out of here." Daelis stands and stretches his arms to the sides. Both of them. He appears surprised that he can do it without a grimace.

  "Feel better?"

  "Much. Still hurts, not so biting. Range of motion is obviously better."

  "Good. Be gentle with it or you'll be back where you were a day or two ago."

  Yana wanders over to me. She holds out a bulging pouch and grins. "I got snails. To eat soon. To share."

  "Wonderful, sweetie. I'm not fond of snails, but I'm sure Daelis would love to share with you," I say with a smile. No, thank you. No snails for me.

  Behind Yana, Daelis scrunches his nose and shakes his head. I'm sure he prefers his snails sautéed and smothered in garlic butter, rather than raw and squirming.

  Cinda stares at us from across the pond. A chill runs across my shoulders. I shake it out through my fingertips. If she threatens us in any way, I will remove her head from her neck and I will not carry a single regret about it. I think Shan trusts me enough that he'll forgive me for it. I hope I don't have to kill her. I hope my son is a better judge of character than I am. He's waking now, and the half-smile he wore in his sleep fades to a frown as he realizes he's neither home nor safe.

  Into the darkness, toward the light. Toward fresh air and sunshine. We'll find our way home. We'll return to our beds, to our waiting family, to fresh fruit and hot tea. And if we don't... well, here's hoping we all die quickly and together. But we won't. My sword and I will make sure of that.

  Day 19, part 2

  We found the bodies at the end of the fourth or fifth dead end. There were at least twelve of them, of various sizes and bone structures. They had been dead a long time, and only mummified flesh was left on their bones. Two, maybe three, near the edge had been torn apart by whatever animals skulked around the caves, but the ones closest to the end of the tunnel were intact.

  "Shan, take Yana back a little. Not far. Don't leave my sight," I said. I stepped over a partial halfling and held my lantern aloft. "Daelis, come help me look for anything useful. Shan could use a sword. Or an axe. I taught him how to fight with both."

  Daelis regarded the bodies with distaste. "I... um... all right. If you see any knives or throwing daggers, hand them to me. Could always use more. Who are all these people? What happened?"

  "Jarrah victims." I bent over and plucked a fang the length of my hand from the shriveled neck of a dwarf. "Whatever killed them had huge teeth. I'm surprised they weren't eaten by it, but I have no idea what it might be. Looks like scavengers picked at them here and there, but they were mostly left alone. Perhaps the killer was venomous so other things couldn't eat them. Maybe it was an animal defending itself or its young, something that doesn't have a taste for people."

  We quietly searched the bodies, one at a time. Some wore pendants that we took to return to their families, others were anonymous. I found a boot knife for Daelis before noticing something shiny halfway buried into the side of an orc. I yanked on the hit. Short sword.

  "Hey, Shan... I found you a weapon," I called. I found its sheath on the belt of a nearby elf torso.

  "I'm not going in there, so give it to me when you're done," Shan replied from the other end of the tunnel. He had Daelis's lantern, but I could barely see the brightness of his hair across the murky distance. I didn't like him being so far away, but I didn't think he was in danger. I was sure whatever killed these people was no longer nearby. How could it be after all this time?

  "Rin..." Daelis whispered.

  "Unless you found something good, I don't care."

  "No, not good. Bad. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, but you need to know. Come here."

  I joined him next to the body of a human. Dark hair, dark clothes, face down, left arm outstretched. I followed the line of the arm to blood smeared upon the rocks. No, not smeared. Written. This victim had written a message in his own blood as he died. A message to me.

  Was taken.

  No choice.

  Sorry Rin and Tessen.

  Rohir

  No. Couldn't be. This couldn't be Rohir. Rohir was still alive somewhere, had to be. He left me and ran off to become a crime lord in some distant realm. At least that's what I assumed he did. Two weeks after Tessen was born, I took the boys on a short walk to the park down the road. Rohir was asleep on my bed when we left. When we came home not even an hour later, Rohir was gone and so was the money I'd hidden under the bedroom floorboards.

  "Can't be," I said. "No, no, no, can't be him."

  I rolled the body onto its back. The spine broke apart under the stress. Sorry, didn't mean to do that. Can't hurt a dead person, but this was my dead person and I didn't want to break him. There was nothing recognizable in the decayed face. Only exposed skull and leathery skin. This hadn't been a man in a long time.

  I felt around the neck until I found a silver chain. I knew the pendant. I had given it to him. The Lim family had no crest, so it was a simple silver circle with a star and a name etched into it. Rohir Lim. Jadeshire. I took the chain and placed it around my own neck. I needed to give it to Tessen, the only living family Rohir has left.

  "Is it Rohir?" Daelis asked. He stood behind me, his hand on my shoulder.

  I reached up to hold his hand. "Yes. He's even wearing the same clothes he was the last time I saw him. I thought... I thought he'd left us, just gotten up and left us that day. He spent months trying to win my father's approval and we were supposed to get married later that week, and then he was gone and so was all the money you'd paid me off with. It didn't make any sense. I wasn't sad, I was furious. I kept thinking, what kind of asshole walks out on his own son, the tiny, helpless baby he'd just spent two weeks cuddling and kissing and loving? Then I remembered what you did to me and assumed I was a horrible judge of character when it came to attractive young men. Now I can see that he didn't leave us at all. He was stolen and brought here to die. And he suffered, look at him. His last act was to write a message to me, one he assumed I'd never read. I need... I need to tell Tessen that Rohir didn't leave us on purpose. He wasn't a preda
tor, he was a victim. Poor Rohir. And my poor Tessen. The Jarrah took his father away before he even got to know him, and now they're trying to take his mother." The tears were a torrent now. I could barely speak through gasping sobs.

  Daelis sat down and put his arm around me so he could hold me in a loose embrace. He handed me a grimy handkerchief. "I'm sorry, Rin. I never understood how or why you were with him, but that doesn't matter, does it? You cared for him and I'm sorry you found him here."

  "He knew he was going to die and his last thought was for us, for Tessen and me." I leaned hard against Daelis's side. He gently stroked my shoulder as he kissed my hair. The haunted levee breached and memories flooded me. "Rohir was Elsin's friend. They knew each other for most of their childhoods, since before Rohir's parents died. About a month after you broke it off with me, Elsin came by our parents' house with Rohir. I was seven months along and feeling huge and hideous, but he complimented me and made me feel beautiful. He took a liking to me and didn't seem to care that Shan wasn't his. We were planning on having kids of our own someday, but Tessen was a surprise. I didn't even know he was there until I started feeling him kick. Midwife had me convinced that I couldn't get pregnant again so soon after giving birth, but that was a lie and I assume she only said it so she'd be guaranteed more work. Rohir was happy about the baby, but I was scared and a little ashamed. It was such a shock when he disappeared, especially on the same morning he told me he was happier than he'd ever been before. Then Dad told me he'd gotten into some trouble as a teenager—theft and pickpocketing—so we all just assumed he stole everything I had and ran. My parents didn't know how much money I had, and I told them he took everything I'd saved during the time I worked for you, the money I'd planned on using for whatever my children needed, and to help Rohir and I start a comfortable life together.