“Shouldn’t we all stick together, then?” I asked nervously.
“No, it’s better for us to split up,” Cyrus replied for him. “The mountain was designed with caves running deep. The lowest levels are for the prisoners and servers, but I’m sure they’re gone by now. It is still best to check though.”
I nodded. “Okay then. Let’s meet back here in one rotation. That should give everyone enough time.”
Everyone nodded and began to walk toward the areas they were to search. Emmy and Cyrus branched off first, since the main administration-type caves had all been on the first level, and the rest of us descended the winding mountain stairs to the lower levels.
“Be safe,” Rome warned, preparing to leave us and explore those lowest levels.
“You be safe,” I shot back before turning to follow Coen into the tunnel.
“Wait,” Siret called out, jogging after us and meeting us at the entrance.
He stopped beside me but didn’t say anything more; instead, he reached up behind me and touched the glass lantern that had been attached to the stone wall. It filled with a warm, golden glow, and then the next lantern flared to life. In small, happypuffs, each lantern along the wall flared to life, until the entire tunnel was illuminated, just as it had once been. I grabbed Siret before he could walk away, and my hands slipped to either side of his face. The exhaustion was there for him, too, and I realised suddenly that I hadn’t just been expellingmyenergy.
I had been spendingtheirsas well.
“Don’t do that for any of the other tunnels,” I warned him, quickly pushing myself to my toes so that I could reach his mouth.
He lowered his head, our lips meeting in a strong kiss despite how drained we both were. His arms slipped around me, crushing me against him, and we only broke apart when Coen cleared his throat in an amused sort of way. Siret set me down, taking a step back and casting a wry grin at Coen.
“I won’t,” he promised. “We can all use this level tonight.” With that, he turned and rejoined the others, and I continued down the newly illuminated tunnel with Coen. We opened each door as we passed, checking for sols, dwellers, or an unlikely armed server, until one particular room caused me to pause.
“Wait.” I put my hand on Coen’s stomach, stepping past him into the room before he could close the door.
It was a well-organised room, with a made bed and several bookshelves that hadn’t been present in the other rooms. There was also a table beneath one of the windows, filled with paper, maps, and other random things.
“I sense Cyrus,” I said.
Coen looked a little closer, his eyes flicking toward the bedding on the floor. “Definitely Cyrus and Emmy.”
I scowled remembering how the Neutral God had once forced Emmy to sleep on his floor, but I quickly pushed the resentment aside. He was one of us, now. He was my family.
“Let’s start on this room,” I suggested, walking over to remove the bedding. “Emmy and Cyrus can share it for some privacy.”
I opened the trunk at the end of the bed, prepared to stuff the bedding from the floor in it, but it was already full of fresh bedding.
“Oh,” I muttered. “That’s where the fresh sheets were kept all this time.”
Coen laughed, moving to help me strip the main bed. It had only been a moon-cycle or so since we’d been at Champion’s peak, but one of the windows had been left partially open, so the bedspread was damp from the salty sea air and a film of dust covered everything.
“You never were very good at the domestic dweller tasks,” he admitted as we switched the old bedding with the clean stuff in the trunk. Together we clumsily coordinated in making the bed again.
“Who was making our bed while we were at Champion’s Peak?” I asked, confused. “It was made every sun-cycle and I didn’t even know about it.”
“Probably a random server or dweller.” He shrugged. “Yael and Siret made it once—but don’t tell them I told you that.”
I smiled. “How’d they do?”
“They made it just like you do. They tucked the sheet into the wrong end.”
I laughed, and for a brief moment lightness filled my heart. It had been too long since we’d just laughed at nothing. We finished the bed in silence, removing one of the outside lanterns from its hook and bringing it inside before closing all the windows. We left that room and inspected the others, finding them all empty. When we entered the large common room that the gods had shared on that level, I knelt by the fireplace, closing my eyes and placing my hand against the wooden logs that sat there, half-smouldered and forgotten. My energy was only a faint stir in the pit of my stomach, but I coaxed it out and thought about lighting a spark to start the wood burning.
“Uh, Willa,” Coen said from behind me.
I blinked my eyes open, seeing that I had, indeed, lit the fire again … with my hand still in it. I quickly jerked it back with a screech, but it hadn’t harmed me in any way. We stoked the fire until light and warmth filled the room, and then we walked around, picking up a few fallen chairs—probably pushed over in the panic of the attacks on the top of the mountain. Only one wall of this room had windows, and they had been closed since the mountain had been abandoned, so we cracked open two of them an inch to allow some oxygen into the space before we continued on to the connected rooms that I had shared with the Abcurses.
We found the room with the beds that they had pushed together and began to change those sheets, finding fresh ones in the chests of the adjoining rooms—sincesomeirresponsible dweller had neglected to replenish whatever was supposed to be in the Abcurses’ rooms. We brought a lantern into that room, too, and then after we were done, we made our way back to the main corridor, taking the steps leading up the side of the mountain. It was dark, now, the moon high in the sky, and a light splattering of rain from some scattered clouds sprinkled over us as we dragged our feet up to the top of the mountain. It made me glad for my leather outfit because it shielded me from the icy chill of the wind—but I was more than ready to switch it out for something fresh. There was no way I was going to tell Siret that, though. He needed to not waste what remained of his energy on clothing for me.
When we reached the top of the mountain, it was bare but for the remains of the hall. The moonlight glinted off the charred, broken pieces of furniture, huge slabs of marble stacked haphazardly on top of each other. Coen led me further away from the ocean side of the mountain, hiding us from the spattering of rain beneath the cover of trees. There, we settled in to wait for the others.
