“Most. Repairs,” he said, one word on each exhale. “Days. To recover. Coordination. Difficult.”
“It’s coming back to you pretty quickly,” I said.
“Wouldn’t hurt to step it up a bit,” Left Ned said.
The glow of Quinten’s and Gloria’s lights was moving ahead of us faster than we were keeping up.
“Think you can?” I asked Abraham.
Instead of wasting breath, he just put a little more effort into walking. He had longer legs than either Neds or me, but I was wishing he were moving at about twice the speed.
“Do you think Domek will find the hatch?” I asked Neds.
“Yes,” Right Ned said.
“How long?”
“Hopefully not before we’re out of this tunnel,” Left Ned said. “We’re fish in a barrel down here.”
“Where do you think this empties out?”
“No idea,” Right Ned said.
Abraham was doing what he could to stay breathing and moving. Even wounded, fevered, weak, and hurting, he didn’t complain.
“Hold up here,” Gloria said from a little way ahead of us. “I’ll see if we can cross.”
“Just a little more,” I said. We finally caught up to Quinten at a place where the tunnel widened a bit. The walls were a rough mix of dirt and bricks, the ceiling supported by wooden beams. Gloria’s light bobbed ahead, casting yellow over more bricks and more beams; then she took a sharp right and was gone.
“Let’s lean for a second,” I suggested. Neds and I guided Abraham to the wall and leaned against it.
We were all sweating and breathing a little hard. Abraham closed his eyes and worked on getting his breathing under control.
Quinten squinted at the shadows that filled the tunnel where Gloria had been moments before. Then he dug in the duffel over his shoulder and pulled out a soft canteen. “It’s water,” he said offering it to me. “He should drink as much as he can.”
I took the container, a waterproof fabric with a hard nozzle and cap at the top. I unscrewed the lid and held it up for Abraham. “You should drink,” I said. “Doctor’s orders.”
It took him a moment, but he opened his eyes and tipped his head down again. He shifted and pulled his arm off from around my shoulders, then did the same with Neds.
He locked his knees to hold him up against the wall and held out his hand for the water.
I gave the canteen to him, and he tipped it up and drank several long, deep swallows. He pulled it away from his mouth, paused to get his breath again, then drank.
While he repeated this, his breathing getting better and better after each time he drank, I glanced around the tunnel, trying to set its location in my head.
“Do you have any idea where we are?” I asked Quinten.
“Other than under the city? No. She always told me she had a way to get out if she was ever discovered by a House.”
“I think I love her a little for that,” I said.
He smiled, the shadow and light carving his profile as if he were made of wax. “There’s a lot about her to love,” he said quietly.
I walked the short distance to my brother and leaned in close. “I need to talk to you about Abraham.”
“Matilda and I will go partway down the tunnel,” he announced to Neds and Abraham. “See if we can see or hear Gloria.”
Before Neds could argue, Quinten took my wrist. We walked about halfway to the junction Gloria had taken to the right.
