They fol­low the candle-holding native into a nar­row cleft in the dark stone wall. As skinny as Gil is, he still has to squeeze through care­fully.

The cleft leads into a curved tun­nel dug out of the sand, V-shaped on the bot­tom. Rick­ety, low-hanging wooden beams hold up the ceil­ing. Gil bumps his head against one, and a shower of sand falls down from above, nearly extin­guish­ing the can­dle.

The whole tun­nel seems ready to col­lapse at any minute. Every step they take digs into the loosely packed sand of the nar­row, sloped walls.

Jaruna speaks to their guide in a tense whis­per.

Jaruna doesn’t answer right away. Gil senses that the mys­tic has no idea what to say.

The bald man flicks his nar­row, wrin­kled eyes from Gil to Kiddu. His eyes widen, tak­ing in her unveiled black face and bare arms in the dim can­dle­light. Then he quickly looks away.

Gil thinks he hears Ayan cough faintly. Her dark eyes bore into her brother.

Everyone’s eyes widen. The bald native shifts uncom­fort­ably in the sand.

Jaruna lets out the most con­de­scend­ing sigh Gil thinks he’s ever heard.

At this, the native lets out an audi­ble gasp.

The bald native holds up his free hand, cut­ting off the argu­ment. Gil can hear mud­dled sounds from behind them—imperial sol­diers, search­ing the base­ment.

He thrusts the can­dle into Jaruna’s free hand.

Mov­ing like a mon­key, the old native darts off into the dark­ness.

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