The soldiers moved with practiced efficiency. They were almost ready.
I looked at the tunnel entrance and thought about the column in the dark below and the thing that had been there before us, and I thought about how my magic had felt when I was in front of it, not frightening, not unwelcome. More like it was returning to its right place after a very long time away.
I could go back down.
Not far.
Just far enough to understand what I'd felt, to put a name to it, and to stop carrying around the wordless question of what it was and why I was responding to it. And what would happen if I touched it?
Just far enough.
My foot shifted. Just slightly. Just enough to turn back?—
“Don't do it,” Baxley said.
I looked over at him. He watched me with that steady, patient expression, and he hadn't moved, and wasn't reaching for my arm to stop me. He was just watching. Waiting.
“I wasn't going to,” I said, hearing the lie in my words.
“Pigshit.”
I looked back at the tunnel entrance. At the dark beyond it. At the place where the tracks disappeared into the rock, and the pulse in my chest saidgo back, go back, go back, at a volume just below hearing.
“Amarya, no.”
With my gut screaming at me in protest, I turned away, with Baxley at my side.
“He's not wrong,” Baxley said as we walked. Or I was escorted. I preferred to think of it as Baxley walking beside me as a friend.
“He’s sometimes wrong,” I said. I had no proof of this. Nicco hadn’t made any mistakes that I could see.
“He’s not.” Baxley’s lips twitched. “I don’t know what’s down there, but you can’t go back, and you definitely cannot go alone.”
I looked at the tunnel entrance. At the darkness beyond it. At the place where the tracks disappeared.
“Then come with me.” I looked up at him and saw his surprise at my request. “We need to know what’s down there, because it’ssomething,” I said. “I could feel it.”
Baxley was quiet for a moment. “You couldfeelit? Did you tell Nicco?”
I nodded quickly. “He felt it too, you need to?—”
“That's exactly why we're leaving,” he said. And his voice, for once, was entirely serious.
I looked up at Baxley. He looked back at me with something that looked a lot like worry.
“We could just?—”
“Trailfinder.” I looked over at where Nicco stood. “Why are you dawdling? It's time to move. Let’s go.”
“I—”
“Now, bunny.”
I ground my back teeth as I focused on him. “You’re not in charge. Captain Marson is in charge. Tell him, Loel.”
Several of the soldiers were suddenly very interested in the waterspouts. Even Captain Marson was avoiding eye contact.
The silence was deafening.
