Chapter 3
CHAPTER
THREE
The city never quite surrenders to the darkness at night. It glows.
Lanterns burn along the upper bridges, casting long reflections across the canals.
Strange moss clings to stone walls where the older parts of the city have begun to crumble, its faint green luminescence bleeding into the alleyways like ghost light.
Even the sky refuses to go properly black.
A dull copper haze hangs above the towers where distant storms pulse beyond sight, turning the clouds into something restless and bruised.
It means shadows behave differently here.
They move.
They breathe.
And if you know how to use them properly, they hide you better than any cloak.
The warehouse is quiet when we begin. It’s not empty—there are always a few people sleeping in the upper lofts—but it’s conspicuously quiet in the way places become when everyone inside understands that something important is about to happen.
Five people wait near the trapdoor.
They stand close together, instinctively forming a small island of bodies in the dim lantern light.
Even after years of doing this, I can still spot the newcomers immediately.
Their posture gives them away—the hardening in their shoulders, how their eyes track every shadow as if expecting danger to crawl out of the walls.
A Strizter, one of the taller of the canal-dwelling species with mottled blue skin, stands slightly apart from the others, the gills along his neck flexing faintly as he breathes the damp air of the warehouse.
The other two adults are a bonded pair.
Human and Glowranth.
Between them, tucked almost invisibly under their arms, are two children.
The older one—maybe eight, maybe nine—tries very hard to stand straight like the adults, chin up and jaw firm.
The younger girl clings to a blanket that has probably crossed three different worlds before ending up here.
She clutches the worn fabric like it’s the only stable thing left in the universe.
I crouch down in front of them, trying to appear smaller and nonthreatening.
Funny how easy that still comes. Old habits and old lessons are hard to forget: Keep your voice calm. Keep your hands visible. Don’t give anyone a reason to decide what you are.
“All right,” I say quietly. “We’re going for a walk.”
The boy studies my face with the careful seriousness of a child who knows they’re part of something important.
“Through the tunnels?”
“Through the tunnels.”
His sister peers around her mother’s leg, eyes wide. “Are there guards down there?”
The question makes me pause just long enough to consider the honest answer. “Not tonight,” I say.
Behind me I hear Varek shift slightly. It’s a small movement, barely more than a shift of weight against the floorboards, but everything about him carries presence whether he intends it to or not. The air changes when he moves.
The boy notices immediately. Kids always do. His eyes widen slightly as he looks up at the towering Nyxerian standing near the wall, horns nearly brushing the low rafters.
“That one’s on our side,” I add.
The boy studies Varek with intense concentration, clearly weighing this information very seriously. After a moment he nods. “Good.”
I stand. “Everyone ready?”
The adults nod, though no one looks relaxed. No one ever does when running for their lives.
The parents are pale with fear but determined—like people become when staying put is no longer survivable. I recognise it.
Not the situation—this place has its own particular brand of nightmare—but the feeling of being somewhere that never quite fits, no matter how long you stay.
Funny thing is, I don’t feel that here. Not really.
Terrafeara doesn’t pretend I belong. It doesn’t pretend I don’t. It just… is. And somehow that’s easier than a world that smiles at you while quietly reminding you where you don’t fit. Back home, it was always there. Subtle. Polite. Until it wasn’t.
The adults exchange a glance that carries the quiet understanding of people who know exactly how dangerous what they’re doing is.
I pull back the rug covering the trapdoor and lift the wooden hatch.
Cool air rises from the darkness below, carrying the familiar scent of damp stone and stagnant canal water.
The tunnels always smell the same—old earth, cold iron, and history.
Originally this was meant to be two runs. Two small groups, spaced half an hour apart. That’s the safer way to do it—fewer bodies in the tunnels, less noise, less chance of someone panicking in the narrow sections.
But the patrol routes shifted again this afternoon.
Olek sent word just before dusk that the canal watch had doubled their sweep near the western exits. Two runs would mean opening the route twice, risking the gate, risking the watchers, risking someone noticing.
So we merged the groups. There are seven of us now. Seven bodies moving through passages that were designed for half that number. Which means the margin for error has gone from thin to practically nonexistent.
Varek insisted on coming.
He wasn’t meant to.
The plan was for him to stay above ground and keep the district quiet while we moved people out, but the moment he heard there were children involved—and that we’d had to merge the groups—he’d made up his mind.
He didn’t argue. He simply offered that calm Nyxerian certainty that means the decision is already made. So now the tunnels are about to get very crowded.
Varek steps closer. Not too close. He’s careful about that now.
I glance sideways at him. “You remember the route?” I ask quietly.
“I do.”
“Good,” I say, lowering the lantern into the opening. “Because you’re following me.”
A faint glimmer of approval touches his expression. “Of course.”
I descend first.
The ladder creaks softly under my boots as I climb down into the dark. The lantern throws shifting shadows across the narrow stone corridor below, revealing slick walls carved decades—maybe centuries—ago when the canal system still served as the backbone of the city’s trade network.
Now it’s just forgotten infrastructure, which makes it perfect.
One by one the others climb down after me.
Varek is the last.
The ladder complains quietly under his weight, and when he reaches the bottom, he has to duck slightly to keep his horns from scraping the ceiling.
The trapdoor closes above us with a muffled thud, and for a moment, we stand in silence.
The lantern casts warm light. Water drips somewhere deeper in the tunnel system, a slow, steady rhythm echoing faintly through the stone. Then I turn and start walking.
The first stretch of tunnel slopes downward, worn smooth by years of water flow. The stone underfoot is slick but familiar, every uneven patch already mapped in my memory.
“Step where I step,” I say quietly over my shoulder. “And stay close.”
Behind me I hear soft footsteps fall into rhythm.
The Strizter male brings up the rear, while Varek walks behind the children. He’s a shadow large enough that nothing unpleasant could reasonably approach without noticing him first.
I pretend not to pay attention to how carefully he adjusts his pace to match theirs.
The tunnel forks after the first bend—two narrow passages splitting around an ancient drainage arch. I take the right-hand path without slowing. Behind me Varek murmurs something to the parents in a low voice.
His tone is calm and steady with the kind of reassurance that settles nerves without drawing attention to itself.
The bond between us stirs faintly in response. Not painful this time. Just aware. Almost like it’s listening.
We move deeper beneath the city.
The air cools as the tunnel dips below the old canal line, and patches of luminescent moss begin to glow along the walls. The greenish light blends with the lantern’s amber glow, painting the stone in shifting colours that make the corridor feel almost alive.
The boy whispers behind me. “This place is cool.”
“You see, nothing to be frightened about,” his human mother murmurs.
I smile to myself as we continue walking.
A few minutes later, we reach the eastern gate. The repair holds.
The iron hinge sits firmly in its reinforced bracket, the wire bindings I installed yesterday gripping the stone frame like a cage of metal veins. I briefly run my hand along the hinge, feeling the tension in the metal.
Solid.
I push the gate slowly, and it swings open without a sound. I feel Varek’s attention focus in approval behind me. Which, annoyingly, feels good.
We continue.
The tunnel beyond narrows into a channel where a shallow stream of canal water runs along one side of the floor.
The stone here slopes slightly toward the water, worn smooth by decades of slow current, which means every step has to be placed carefully unless you want to end up on your back in cold canal sludge.
“Careful,” I say quietly. “It’s slippery.”
Which is apparently the universe’s cue to prove my point.
The boy’s boot skids sideways. He windmills for a second, trying to catch his balance, and I instinctively reach back—
Only to step directly into the shallow water myself.
My foot shoots forward. There’s a brief, deeply undignified moment where I consider the possibility that I’m about to demonstrate exactly what not to do.
Behind me Varek’s hand moves fast—pure instinct—but stops short of my arm.
Hovering.
Waiting.
The boy catches himself against the wall at the same time I manage to regain my balance with a splash and a muttered curse.
For a second no one says anything. Then the boy snorts. His sister giggles.
I clear my throat and straighten. “Right,” I say, like that was completely intentional. “That’s why we walk carefully.”
Behind me Varek lowers his hand again.
He hadn’t been stopping himself from helping the boy. Only from grabbing me.
And somehow, that small distinction twists something low in my chest in a way I’d rather not examine too closely.
We continue through the tunnels in silence.