The attic door creaked.
It was the loudest sound in the universe. A long, drawn-out groan of old wood that screamed WE ARE HERE.
Elias froze, his hand on the knob. I froze, my body halfway out of the crawlspace.
We listened.
The shouts from below were muffled, distant. Nothing from the attic itself.
He eased the door open. We slipped out, back into the forest of sheet-covered furniture. It was no longer a forgotten space; it was a hunting ground. The air was cold and still.
"Service stairs," Elias mouthed. He didn't even risk a whisper.
He led the way, crouching low, weaving between the white, ghostly shapes. I followed, my crowbar held in a white-knuckled grip. It felt impossibly heavy, useless. What was I going to do? Hit Serena? Brain a Prefect I had breakfast with?
The thought made me want to throw up.
The door to the service stairs was at the far end. It was a small, metal-bound door, probably for servants a hundred years ago. Elias pointed. He wanted me to go first.
I shook my head. He was the guide.
He glared, jabbed his finger at the door, then at me. You open it. You're the one with the weapon.
Oh.
My heart hammered. I crept forward, the floorboards groaning under my feet. Every sound was a betrayal. I reached the door, my hand shaking so badly I could barely grab the iron ring-pull.
I pulled. It was stuck.
I pulled harder, panic flaring. It wouldn't budge.
Elias shoved me aside, his face a mask of frustration. He put his foot against the wall and yanked. The door flew open with a thud that echoed like a gunshot.
We both winced, flattening ourselves against the wall.
Silence. No, not silence. The shouts from below got louder, closer.
"They're on this level," Elias hissed, all pretense of silence gone. "They're checking the attics now. Go!"
He shoved me through the door.
We weren't on the grand staircase. We were in a narrow, stone spiral, cold and damp. It smelled like mildew. We plunged down, our footsteps echoing in the tight space.
We descended two floors, the air getting colder. Then Elias grabbed my arm, pulling me to a dead stop.
Voices. Below us. Coming up.
"...nothing in the library stacks. Blackwood's furious. Said to check every room, top to bottom."
"I heard they... broke the Core. Is that true?"
"Shut up. Just... shut up and search."
They were on the stairs. Our stairs.
Elias looked around wildly. There was nowhere to hide. Just the stone spiral, a bare bulb flickering above.
"This way!" He darted off the landing, through an unmarked wooden door I'd thought was a closet.
It wasn't. It was a linen chute.
A long, dark, metal-lined shaft dropped into blackness. It was vertigo-inducing.
"No," I whispered. "No way."
"They're coming, Kaito!" He grabbed the edge. "It's this or them."
I could hear their boots on the steps now, just one floor below.
Elias swung his legs in. "Go!"
I didn't think. I just did it. I sat on the cold metal edge, the crowbar digging into my ribs, and let go.
I fell.
It was a terrifying, stomach-lurching drop, a blur of darkness and the metallic screech of my clothes. I hit the bottom a second later in a heap of what was, mercifully, a huge pile of dirty laundry.
The smell of bleach and old sweat filled my nose.
A heavy thud as Elias landed right on top of me, knocking the wind out of me.
"Oof... get off..."
"Shhh!"
We were in the laundry room. Total darkness. The shouts from the stairwell were faint, far above us. We'd bypassed them.
"My god," I breathed, untangling myself from a pile of damp towels. "That... that worked."
"Don't celebrate," Elias panted, finding his feet. He fumbled for his lantern, then clearly thought better of it. "We're in the basement. This is it."
He led me out of the laundry, into a cavernous, low-ceilinged hallway. Pipes lined the ceiling, dripping rhythmically. This was the school's underbelly.
"The boiler room is this way," he said, his voice just a breath. "Stay close. This is their territory."
We moved through the dark, our hands on the damp stone wall. My eyes were starting to adjust, making out shapes in the oppressive gloom. Crates, old desks, forgotten... things.
It felt like walking through a graveyard. The air was dead. The school above us was a frantic hive, but down here... it was just... over.
A sudden, bright light flared at the end of the hall.
We both ducked behind a stack of broken chairs.
"I'm telling you, I heard something," a voice said. A man's voice. A groundskeeper.
"You're hearing rats," another replied. "They're not gonna be down here. Blackwood's got everyone guarding the gates. They're trapped. They're probably hiding in a dorm, stupid kids."
A flashlight beam swept the hall. It hit the pile of chairs, passing right over us. I held my breath so hard my chest ached.
Don't see us. Don't see us. Don't see us.
The light moved on.
"Let's just check the boiler room access, like he said. Make sure the door's locked from this side."
My blood ran cold. They were going exactly where we were.
"This way's faster." The flashlight beam disappeared around a corner.
Elias and I didn't move for a full minute. I was shaking so hard I could barely stand.
"They're... they're not students," I whispered.
"I told you," Elias said, his voice strained. "It's everyone. They're all... part of it. The benefits, the 'loyalty'... it's the whole town. The whole system."
We were completely, utterly alone.
"We have to go," he said. "Now. While they're checking the other door."
He pulled me. We ran, slipping and scrambling through the dark, in the opposite direction the groundskeepers had gone.
We found it. The main entrance to the boiler room. A heavy, reinforced metal door.
"This is it," Elias said. He pulled the leather book from his bag, fumbling with his small lantern. He shielded the light with his body, illuminating a single page.
"There's no lock," he whispered. "Not... a key, anyway. The book says it's... a symbol."
He ran his finger along the cold metal door, tracing a pattern I couldn't see. He was mimicking one of the sigils from the book.
For a second, nothing.
Then, a low, grinding clunk from within the door. It wasn't a lock. It was a mechanism. A heavy, ancient, oiled mechanism.
The door eased open a crack, spilling absolute, crushing blackness.
Elias looked at me. "Scene of the crime. They won't be looking for us in here. They think it's... dead."
He took a deep breath and slid inside.
I gripped my crowbar and followed him, pulling the heavy door shut behind me. The click of it sealing was the most final sound I'd ever heard.
We were in. The air was cold, still. The metallic-sweet smell was gone, but the memory of it was everywhere.
Elias flicked on his lantern. The beam cut through the dark, illuminating the rusted, sleeping giants.
It was exactly as we'd left it. Silent. Dead.
"The coal chute," he whispered, his voice echoing way too loudly in the vast space. "Let's go."
We moved, our small light a beacon of terror. I kept expecting the guardian to re-form from the shadows. I kept expecting to hear Maya whisper.
But there was nothing. Just rust, and concrete, and the drip... drip... drip... of water.
We reached the back wall. The carved stones. The symbols were dark, just etchings now. Powerless.
"There," Elias said, pointing.
The low, dark archway of the coal chute. It was a black, gaping mouth, promising either escape or a different kind of grave.
Elias went to it, shining the lantern inside. It was just a tunnel, black and deep.
"This is it, Kaito. The founder's escape route. This will take us..."
CRASH!
The metal door we'd just come through exploded open.
"THEY'RE IN HERE!" a voice roared.
Beams of light, not from lanterns, but from high-powered tactical flashlights, flooded the boiler room.
"DON'T LET THEM ESCAPE!"
We were illuminated, caught like rats in a trap. I saw them. Four, five men. The groundskeepers. And behind them... a student.
It was Serena.
Her face was cold, beautiful, and filled with a calm, righteous fury. She wasn't a schoolgirl. She was an inquisitor.
"There!" she commanded, pointing right at us.
"The chute! Go!" Elias screamed, shoving me.
I fell, scrambling into the black hole of the tunnel.
"Get them!"
I heard a grunt. I looked back. Elias had stumbled. One of the men was on him, a big hand grabbing his backpack.
Elias twisted, screaming, and swung the ancient leather book, smacking the man square in the face.
The man howled, letting go.
"ELIAS, COME ON!" I yelled from the darkness.
He scrambled in after me, just as another man lunged, his fingers grasping at Elias's ankle.
He missed.
We were both in. In the absolute, crushing black. Behind us, the shouts and the blinding lights of our pursuers.
"Crawl!" Elias screamed, his voice right in my ear. "CRAWL!"
We plunged, blind and desperate, into the cold, ancient earth, the sound of the hunt echoing at our heels.