The cloth that covered Luna’s mouth and nose did little to alleviate the stench of death and excrement. Above her head, water dripped from ancient stalactites that clung to the vaulted roof of the tunnel. The light from her torch seemed afraid to go too far through the thick, steaming atmosphere.
Behind her, Vil-Odek’s sandals splashed on the brick floor. She tried not to think about what they splashed in.
“It’s just up ahead,” he said. In deference to their surroundings he had put on a robe of undyed cloth that was cinched around his waist with a black cord. Going around semi-naked being frowned upon generally in the city of Tond.
Their destination was a ladder that took them up eight feet onto a street that was marginally less filthy than the sewer that they had entered through. It was dark except for the light of torches.
“Always night down here,” Luna murmured. “Where life itself slumbers,”
“What’s that?” said Vil-Odek.
“I think I read it somewhere.” Luna looked around. “Aren’t your contacts supposed to be here?” She fingered the dagger on her belt. A sound behind her spun her around almost involuntarily, and the dagger was out-
-at the throat of Shten Braghent, who she had thought she would never see again!
“Luna!” He said, breaking out in a smile. “What are you doing here?”
Luna lowered the dagger, and shrugged. “You know,” she said. “Surviving.”
“Well, I can’t say I’m happy you’re here, but I am glad to see you. We thought you were dead after you disappeared like that in the cart.”
“Where is Vic?” said Luna, referring to Shten’s brother Vich-Clac. The scar-faced brother was nowhere to be seen. The long, stringy hair that Luna had once identified Shten by was gone, his head shaven close now.
Shten shook his head. “Around. Probably still in bed.”
“Whose?” Luna said, and Shten chuckled.
Vil-Odek looked between the two of them. “You know each other? But I thought you lived in the Duke’s household?”
Luna explained, with help from Shten, the series of events that had led to her finding herself in the home of Pek-Tchat all those months ago. Months. It had been so long since she had seen Asta. She felt a sudden pang of terror that she would have been brainwashed or – or changed somehow. What if she wouldn’t leave?
“We need to get moving.” She quickly laid out the plan to Shten. She had never been to the Philosopharium where Asta had been held, but she needed a way in now. After that, this would have to be their exit, through the tunnels again.
“The Philosopharium…” said Shten. “I think Vich-Clac has a girl in the furnace level below that building. She might be able to get us in.”
Luna grinned. “Let’s go find him, then.”

Vich-Clac was climbing out of the window of one of what Shten described as one of his less common haunts when they finally found him.
“It’s always the last place you look,” said Luna, and then considered that once you find what you’re looking for you generally stop looking.
“Who lives here?” Shten said with half-mock sternness. Vich-Clac began explaining a convoluted story about parents-in-law and men away with the scouting parties. As he told it, he gradually slowed down. He glanced at Luna.
“…how long have you been here?” he said eventually. She smirked at him. “Good to see you,” he said in a low voice, an attempt to conceal his surprise. “That’s a nice haircut.” His hair, like his brother’s, was shaven down to a few millimetres of fuzz on top of his head.
“We need your help, Vic,” said Luna. “Shten tells me you have… contacts. People that might be useful to us.” Vich-Clac nodded. When she named the Philosopharium he winced, but agreed that he would do what he could.

The woman in question greeted them in the stairwell of the Philosopharium foundations, about six stories above ground. She was a broad-shouldered, muscular type with soot-black hair a little longer than the brothers’ and an impressive array of burn scars who told them she wasn’t doing this for Vich-Clac, with some disdain on her face plainly visible. Luna and Vil-Odek glanced at each other with a worried look, but the woman, who was called Gils, opened the door behind her into the red hell of the furnace level anyway. “I’m doing it because it needs doing,” she said with a bitter smile. “I’d want it doing for me.”
From the furnace level Luna and Vil-Odek ascended through maintenance tunnels and pitch-black passageways until the next door led suddenly into the candlelit library-catacombs that laid under the Philosopharium. Scrolls in square nooks like the ones in the personal library of Pek-Tchat lined every wall as far as they could see and further. Hooded scholars moved between the shelves like blind insects, scuttling from one unmarked nook to another with exacting precision, selecting a scroll here, replacing one there.
The hoods didn’t look up at the passing of Luna and Vil-Odek, at least until Luna grabbed one. His hood fell off, and he covered his eyes instantly with a yelp of “My eyes!”
Luna glanced at Vil-Odek, who shook his head, nothing to add.
“I’m looking for Asta Venn. She has skin like mine, see?” said Luna.
“I can’t, I can’t!” repeated the scholar, his eyes still covered. “I only look upon the words!”
Great. Luna dropped him, and he fell to the floor with a thwump sound, his robes flapping about him. She signalled to Vil-Odek and strode off down the aisle.
“Wait!” said the scholar, extending a pale hand. “Skin like yours… you’re the one from above, aren’t you?”
Luna nodded, then said “yes,” to be on the safe side.
“The other one… She’s on the floor above. You may not like what you find, though,” said the scholar, pulling himself to his feet. Luna didn’t care what she found any more. She was so close.

The woman who had become known as Est-Aven over the last nearly half a year was, at that moment, standing at a lectern that held one of the oldest fictional books in the Tond language and reading the scroll intently. It was bloodier than the classics she was used to.
The door then burst open. She turned, and was greeted by a face she had sometimes thought she might forget in her long stay in the labyrinth down here. They had let her out of her cage after the first two weeks and she had quickly become part of the furniture. The libraries had been her favourite place in the building as soon as she saw the long halls, full of the accumulated knowledge of centuries, never before seen by human eyes.
“Lu?” she said. “What are you doing?” She spoke in Tond instinctually, so fluent that even her accent was beginning to dissipate. Luna didn’t answer, but crossed the distance across the room as if it wasn’t there. She pulled the startled Asta into an embrace and buried her face in her shoulder.
After a moment, Asta became aware that Luna was crying. “Luna…” she said, and allowed her own arms to close around her. It was slightly terrifying to her. Luna was always the one to take charge, always the one with something to say. She looked up and saw a large, handsome man in robes that resembled a scholar’s blocking quite a lot of the doorway. He nodded to her, somewhat awkward.
“Why are you here?” she asked, finally. “My door…”
“Your door?” said Luna. “We’re here to rescue you!” She wiped tears from her cheeks and smiled. “Come here!”
The kiss was salty and not objectively all that pleasant. Still, it knocked Asta for a loop so much that she almost forgot to respond.
“Coming?” said Luna in Standard, making for the door.
Not yet, Asta thought. There’s so much to learn…
Then she thought about that kiss again, and the promise behind it.
Another moment and she would have happily burned that library to the ground.

As they ran between the shelves, a bell rang. It was the kind that jangled the ears and the nerves alike.
“Oh, hell,” said Luna.
“The alarm. Blade Scholars will be here soon,” muttered Asta.
“Blade Scholars? Fantastic. Vil-Odek?”
“Yes?” said the big man.
“Armed?”
“Go not with steel-”
“Alright, you’re useless. Is there anything we can do?” Luna asked, turning to Asta. She looked at Vil-Odek thoughtfully. An idea was forming. She told Luna, who didn’t like it. “Have you seen two people come this way, sister?” said the scholar in the red robe to Asta, a black-bladed cutlass in each hand. She shook her head.
“I think I heard something upstairs. In the dormitories,” she said. “Now, can I ask you a question?” She proceeded to bombard him with enquiries about various ancient duelling manuals and treatises on combat, as well as their commentaries. Swamped thus, the Blade Scholar hastily made excuses and jogged off down the aisle towards the stairs, leading his compatriots with a nod to Asta and another to the broad-shouldered scholar beside her, who was poring over the shelves with extreme care.
When a minute had passed, and hearing no more from the scholars who had gone on, Asta hissed: “You can come out now.”
The long robes flapped up and the face of Luna appeared, gasping for breath.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said.