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We'd covered the length of the sealed passage by the time the light in the crystal lanterns had started noticeably dimming, and I called the pull-back before anyone had to ask.

"We're heading back to make camp," I said. "We'll reassess tonight, and go into whatever's past this rubble properly equipped tomorrow. Fresh crystals, full rope kit, and enough hands free to secure the site before we start pulling anything apart."

"We're close," Jade said, immediate, already half turned back toward the worked stone rather than the way we'd come.

"The trail's fresh. If we wait until tomorrow, weather or water or another collapse could take half of what we're looking at."

"I know."

"Then let's finish it now."

"Look at the light, Jade." I kept my voice even, nothing in it that would read as a reprimand.

"Half our crystals are already dimming and I don't want Alex creating fire this deep inside the tunnels. We've been on our feet since before dawn, and whoever built this wanted exactly this, someone tired, rushing the last stretch in bad light because the trail felt too good to leave for morning."

"I can push through tired."

"That's not the part I'm worried about."

She looked at me, and for a moment neither of us said anything, the rest of the squad going carefully still around us the way they always did when an argument threatened to become something that mattered.

"Do you remember the trap field," I said. "Estarith Bay. The poachers' lines."

Something shifted behind her eyes.

"You told me rushing toward every hurt thing I could feel was going to get somebody killed. Me, or whoever I was trying to save." I held her gaze, careful to keep any edge out of my voice, because this wasn't a lesson I wanted to deliver twice in the same tone.

"This is the same field, Jade. Different terrain. We go in exhausted, working by failing light, into a passage someone deliberately built to collapse on the people who came looking. That isn't a fresh trail. That's exactly the kind of hurry that gets someone buried for real."

She held my gaze a moment longer, jaw tight, and I watched her actually weigh it instead of simply pushing back the way habit alone would have carried her.

"You're right," she said, before I had to say anything further.

That caught me off guard more than the argument would have.

"I don't like it," she added. "But you're right. We go in blind and tired, and whoever built this gets exactly the accident they were hoping to stage next."

"That's the concern."

"I know it's a concern. I got there on my own this time." Something almost wry crossed her face, gone as fast as it arrived. "You don't have to look that pleased about it."

"I'm not."

"You're a little pleased."

I was. I didn't confirm it, and she didn't need me to.

We made camp in a wide, dry cavern a quarter mile back toward the entrance, ceiling high enough that Halver didn't need to duck and open enough that Nykos's sweep could cover the whole space without strain. Nobody talked much once the fire crystals were lit and the packs settled. Alex, usually the one filling silence before it had the chance to settle properly, sat with his knees drawn up and said almost nothing through the whole meal.

It was Halver who finally said what the rest of us were circling.

"Somebody built all of this to be found and dismissed at the same time," he said. "The Skitters story holds up exactly long enough for nobody to look twice. Everything past that first glance falls apart."

"Whoever did it knew that," Nykos said. "Knew the Warden would take the easy answer, knew nobody would check the medical report closely enough to ask about the bruising or cuts. That's not carelessness. That's planning."

"For what, though." Alex turned his cup between his hands without drinking from it. "Crates nobody can trace. Ruts in a sealed tunnel. A person bleeding and moved. None of it points to one clean answer yet."

"No," I said. "It doesn't."