A sudden loss of weight, a view pinching to a needle’s eye, a torrent of wind flooding her ears like a river in spate.

It felt like the replay of that beast-hunt years ago, the earth swallowing them whole, a serpent biting its tail; even the culprits were the same two princes. It would’ve fit Adelaide’s bitter humor, a grim little jest to curl her lip—if Rockridge hadn’t just gone for Mira.

The short fall cooled the blaze of adrenaline; the fragile heart that had been ready to detonate slowed like embers settling. Thought trickled back, enough to stop the urge to rip out Bloodsword and take Rockridge’s head.

She held a breath midair; her fingers traced quick strokes like swallows across water. Blood flicked from her tips and braided into scarlet threads, a spiderweb opening beneath her and Mira.

Two heavy thumps followed; they hit and threw up a curtain of dust like dry rain.

“Cough, cough…”

“Hss… that hurts…”

Mira’s cough and Adelaide’s complaint filtered from the smoke, their figures ragged like cats dragged through briars. Mira’s coat was torn wide; Adelaide’s hair wrap had burst, her stark white hair spilling in tangles over her shoulders like winter grass. At least they could speak; the shock-damping array she threw together at the last instant had caught them like a net.

“Mira… are you okay?”

As her breathing settled, Adelaide’s first instinct was Mira; she caught the way Mira wiped blood from the corner of her mouth, a dark smear like a sunset line.

“…Let’s go.”

Seeing Mira brace her own leg to rise, Adelaide’s chest clenched like a fist; rage at Rockridge surged back like a storm tide. This time she only gripped her bracelet; reason fell like cool rain and took the hill.

In truth, Rockridge stood on Skela’s level; fighting him now would be like tossing tinder into a gale. She needed to get Mira out of his chase radius and away from that damned ringing’s reach.

Adelaide drew two deep breaths; calm like frost spread. She turned and swept the room. The dust they’d kicked up had thinned; rows of deep-green glass bottles jammed in wall grooves glimmered like pond water.

An underground wine cellar—this was where she’d planned to come before she ran into Rahman.

She froze for half a heartbeat; this wasn’t chance but thread-work.

She looked toward Mira, who was aiming for the main door, and caught her hand.

“Come with me.”

Mira’s brows tightened like drawn strings; she didn’t know the plan, but she followed, quiet as a shadow.

Adelaide brought them to a barrel; she searched the staves like feeling for seams in bark, found a catch, and let out a relieved breath like warm steam.

Yes. Right here.

She pressed and eased; the sealing board shifted open, revealing a throat of black leading down, night poured into wood.

In the “script,” the heroine learned this passage through Samir; that was why Samir smashed the floor and sent them down—surrounded inside and out, this tunnel was the only slice of sky left.

Adelaide stepped into the passage. “From here we can reach the outer city—”

Her foot went soft; the world tilted like a boat in a whirl. The adrenaline washed off; the fatigue since the underground lab and the burden of repeated Crimson Frenzy bit back like a hidden wolf.

At that single slack instant, weakness avalanched through her like a mudslide; she almost pitched forward, helpless as a leaf.

Before her face met stone, Mira’s arm slid in and braced her like a beam.

“I’ll carry you.”

Mira sealed the board behind them with one hand, then, without argument, hefted Adelaide from her arms to her back and stepped into the dark like a diver into deep water.

Adelaide lay draped across her, and only after a long stretch did her half-faint clear. She opened her eyes; her vision bobbed with Mira’s steps, up and down like a lantern swaying on a night path. That made her aware; she feebly tried to slide off.

“Don’t push it. You were just—”

“I’m fine,” Mira cut in, her grip tightening around Adelaide’s thigh like iron vines, holding her in place.

“Mira…”

Hearing Adelaide breathe her name at her ear, soft as a moth’s wing, Mira hesitated for half a beat, then tilted her head.

“As long as I can’t hear that sound, I’m okay.”

“You’re lying.”

Mira didn’t answer; she lowered her head and kept moving, swift as a stream under ice.

Adelaide was sure Rockridge had done something with serious fallout to Mira. Not just the blood on her lip; it was that last line from him—the confidence, a voice like a hand closing, as if saying no matter what they tried, they’d never slip his palm.

Her heart skipped like a thrown stone; she scanned Mira up and down, hunting for damage like a hawk’s eye over fields. But Mira’s breathing was steady; Adelaide could feel her heartbeat through her chest, firm as a drum—just as Mira claimed, once they left the ringing’s range, she was fine.

Damn it… what does Tessmi’s Lament actually do?

Adelaide’s fingers clenched like frost; she was about to press Mira, when a tainted breeze brushed her face, sour as stale fruit.

There shouldn’t be wind in a tunnel; it meant an exit was close, the outside’s breath spilling in.

While Adelaide drifted in and out, Mira had covered a long stretch; freedom lay only a few paces ahead, a doorframe of dawn. Her steps slowed and softened, and Adelaide shut her mouth on instinct, silence settling like snow.

This long night was thinning; they could not be seen now, or all this would be ash.

Near the iron-bar gate, both Adelaide and Mira held their breath, lungs taut like bowstrings.

Creak—

Dry, rusty hinges turned and complained, small but sharp as a knife on glass. Mira eased her head out, scanned the edges like a cat at a threshold, then slipped from the passage.

The passage opened into a cramped alley—more a drainage trench. The ground sat low; every alley’s wash gathered here. Mira’s foot went down with a splash, and the sour stench in the air churned Adelaide’s stomach like boiling brine.

The place was long neglected; empty iron lanterns hung on walls like dead eyes, their kerosene long gone, doing nothing for the dark. Because of that, the alley was hollow and still; even drunk vagrants seemed to shun the smell and the damp.

Good. The stink was vile as rot, but it beat spilling straight into a bustling street where a tide of people would cast a hundred eyes. She was about to pick up the thread from before when Mira suddenly turned, tucking both their faces into shadow like stones under a ledge.

In that pivot, Adelaide caught a silhouette at the alley’s mouth, a cutout where street met night; her heart that had just dropped settled rose again like a startled bird.

There was nowhere to hide in an empty alley. They’d been seen… No—Mira moved in time, and with this gloom, maybe the stranger hadn’t caught their faces…

“Adelaide… classmate?” The murmured line shattered her hope like glass.

…

Adelaide’s eye flicked to her spilled white hair, that telltale winter flag, and she knew why the mask had slipped.

Cold ran down her spine like melted ice. Being seen meant position exposed; Rockridge would send hounds. If it were only Mira, maybe. But with Adelaide a limp anchor, no supplies to their names, where could they run?

Mira’s hand in shadow slid to her sword, calm as midnight; the scabbard lifted a hair, light catching like a blade’s first dawn. She’d thought the same thing as Adelaide. And then, a different man’s voice cut in from nearby.

“Hey, Great Magician, what are you staring at?”

The girl at the alley mouth turned; she opened her mouth, eyes flicking between the man and Adelaide’s corner like swallows between reeds, then shook her head.

“Uh… nothing. Just… two big rats.”

Mira’s sword settled back to its sheath like a tide going out.

“Huh? How big? I’ll take a look.”

“No, no, don’t bother. Nothing worth seeing. They’re only about this big.” She waved an oval the size of a fist, then shifted to block the alley with her body like a screen.

The man’s steps stopped; a breathless pause hung, then he burst out laughing, warm as a campfire. “Rats that big are everywhere. What, go to a fancy noble school and forget what rats look like?”

“Ha, haha~ hilarious.”

“Seriously, you’ve gotten so delicate. On the national tour, you’ll be sniffling the whole way, Lady Michelle.”

“Okay, okay, I got it. Go do your thing. Did you buy the doves for trick number three?”

He slapped his head. “Oh, right.” Then jogged off like a dog eager for the market. The girl let out a long breath, patting her chest like calming a skittish horse, and finally turned to flash them a safe sign.

Adelaide froze; she studied the girl’s face, a string in her heart plucked like a single note.

Had she just… called her “classmate”?