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“I thought—There… There should be.”
Aarin knelt down. Lily met him at his side and helped disassemble the lamp to find the wick. Estelle and Gwyneth cowered next to each other, necks craning one way, then the other when the lantern was lit.
“Well…” Aarin twisted around to make out the room. Lily kept close as he ambled through the dark.
It was small, carved from rock, and not lined with concrete like Jarek mentioned the armory was. The walls here appeared moist and neglected, as if Caiven only wanted the tunnel dug and not maintained. It looked like it could crumble around them at any moment.
There was only one way out.
“We go this way,” Lily said, placing Estelle and Gwyneth in front of her so Aarin could lead them through. The absence of their voices made the most insignificant sounds—a sharp inhale, a cough, the pebbles under their boots—ring like the charge of a rifle in the narrow space.
They all crept without speaking until the musty darkness seemed unbreakable.
“How much farther?” Estelle asked. Lily let the question dangle, and Aarin twisted his head around, exchanging a worried glance with Lily. “Gwyn.”
Gwyneth, who was staring off at the widening walls, tripped over herself.
“Curse it all,” she mumbled. Lily and Estelle reached out to catch her. She pushed them away and straightened on her own. “I don’t know! Last time it was lit.”
“It’s opening up,” Aarin said, raising the lamp.
“Let me see.” Gwyneth moved through the dark, appearing at Aarin’s side. “I know where we are. I’ll… The lights. Let’s find the lights.”
Lily and Estelle followed close behind Aarin and Gwyneth, not straying too far from the lantern’s glow.
“You don’t trust her, do you?” Estelle’s voice was a harsh whisper.
“No,” Lily answered.
“She’s terrified.”
“We let her take us down here, didn’t we?”
“You’re Ashin. What if you’re deceiving us, just like that man did?” Estelle let go of a sharp breath. “I don’t see you helping us because you feel like it. Did someone send you? Are you being paid?”
“I came here for Caiven’s guns, but I was told to get Gwyneth… and you out if I could.”
“By who?”
“One of Amalia Argent’s men…” Lily waited, but Estelle said nothing. “There’s still time to go back if you’ve changed your mind.”
“Never,” Estelle said with a ferocity Lily didn’t expect. “I have to try. Anything’s better than this.”
The hall grew wider, bowing out so wide the light no longer reached the walls. It looked like they were now in a room.
“Well?” Aarin asked. “Where are the lights?”
Gwyneth’s breathing was so heavy it came out in heaves. Her head snapped one way, then another.
Estelle moved up to her side. “What’s wrong?”
Gwyneth snatched Estelle by the wrist and dragged her into the dark. Estelle cried out, surprised.
“Shit!” Aarin cursed.
He and Lily sprang after them, following their footsteps, until what sounded like the charge of a beam carried through the dark. They both came to a stop as two small orbs of purple light filled the room. The girls were ahead of them, staring up at a jagged shape nestled into the wall.
One of Gwyneth’s hands was wrapped around Estelle’s wrist, the other pressed to the gleaming shell of something Lily couldn’t make out.
