The tunnel doesn't slope upward.
It climbs.
Not clean nor it is even. The tunnel Gary carved is narrow, vertical in places, reinforced with scavenged supports where the stone threatened to shear inward. Iron spikes jut from the walls at irregular intervals, driven in by hand, worn smooth where fingers once gripped them in the dark.
We ascend in silence.
Every movement pains me.
My right arm is bound tight against my chest, useless weight dragging at my balance. Each pull upward sends pain lancing through my shoulder, down my ribs, into places that don't have names. The bone grinds softly when I move wrong.
Ashlynn stays below me, one hand braced against the wall, the other hovering close — not touching, but ready. She doesn't rush me. She doesn't urge me on.
Gary climbs ahead.
He uses only his left hand efficiently. He never pauses to see if we're keeping up. He assumes we will.
The tunnel breathes differently the higher we go.
The air grows colder. Wetter. The smell shifts — from stone and confinement to rot, runoff, and old water. Somewhere above us, something mechanical hums faintly, steady and distant.
Not the prison.
Something older.
When we finally emerge, it isn't into open space.
It's into brick.
An arched maintenance chamber reinforced with riveted iron bands, water trickling along a central channel carved smooth by decades of neglect. Condensation beads on the walls. The lantern light reflects in dull halos, swallowed quickly by shadow.
A sewer junction.
Thud.
I stumble on the landing.
Pain explodes up my right arm, sharp enough to steal air from my lungs. I drop to one knee, teeth clenched hard enough that my jaw clicks. The arm doesn't respond when I try to catch myself.
It hangs.
Ashlynn is there immediately. She doesn't ask. She already knows.
She kneels, hands steady despite the tremor in her shoulders, and tears fabric from her uniform. The cloth darkens as soon as it touches my skin. She binds carefully, tightening only where she must, avoiding pressure points by instinct rather than training.
Leechsteel doesn't answer. No weight. No heat. No recognition.
Its absence is louder than the pain.
Gary seals the tunnel behind us. He doesn't rush. He presses stone back into place, aligning seams until the wall looks untouched. His movements are precise despite the ruined hand.
He listens. Longer than comfort allows.
Nothing follows.
That does not mean we are safe. But it is enough.
We move through the sewer in silence. The architecture changes gradually—brick gives way to reinforced stone, iron grates embedded where runoff channels intersect. This part of Tauran was built when permanence mattered. When cities expected to last.
Somewhere above us, the city wakes.
I can hear it faintly through layers of stone and earth. Steam whistles cry. Machinery hums to life. Civilization resumes without pause.
The prison was never separate.
Just buried.
When grey light finally bleeds in through an outflow channel, it feels unreal. The outskirts stretch before us—factories hunched against the horizon, smokestacks coughing black into the sky, rail spurs threading outward like scars.
No alarms. No pursuit.
Ashlynn steps into the open air first. She squints, breath catching as if the sky itself is unfamiliar. Freedom doesn't soften her posture. It sharpens it.
My arm throbs steadily now, pain settling deep instead of loud. Each step reminds me of what I've lost.
Not just strength.
Certainty.
Leechsteel chose something else.
And whatever it chose mattered more than me.
Gary stops. He doesn't look back at the sewer. He doesn't have to.
"We split here," he says, exhaling a breath.
Ashlynn stiffens. She folds her arms into her stomach.
I don't.
"Where will you go?" she asks. Her tone is soft.
Gary considers the question longer than necessary. "North," he answers finally. "There's unfinished business."
Not a lie. But not comforting either.
I step forward despite the pain.
"Take me with you."
He turns then. His gaze moves over me slowly. My ruined arm. The way I still angle myself between him and Ashlynn without thinking. The fact that I'm standing at all.
"That's not what I came for," he says.
"I know."
Silence stretches, filled with the distant sound of industry and the faint hiss of steam escaping iron joints.
"There was someone else," Gary says carefully. "Someone I was supposed to find."
A pause.
"I didn't." He continues. "But I found something unexpected instead."
His eyes settle on me again.
Not curiosity.
Assessment.
"You weren't on any list," he says. "No records. No transfers. No reason for you to exist where you did."
My arm aches. I welcome it.
"I survived anyway," I say.
"Yes," he replies. "You did."
Another pause.
"I don't make decisions," Gary continues. "I bring evidence to people who do."
Ashlynn looks between us. "Evidence of what?"
Gary doesn't answer her, ignoring her question.
He watches me.
"You're a nobody now," he says. "And you're still standing."
I meet his gaze. "I'll adapt."
That earns the smallest change in his expression. But not approval. Mere interest.
"You want protection," he says.
"I want to protect her," I correct.
That matters.
He weighs it. I can see the calculation behind his eyes—the risks, the utility, the consequences of being wrong.
Finally, he nods once.
"Then you come," he says. "Until you can't."
No promise. No allegiance. No explanation.
Just trajectory.
Ashlynn exhales slowly, tension bleeding from her shoulders but not leaving entirely.
We start toward the rail line.
Every step hurts.
Every step confirms I'm still here.
Around us, Tauran City exhales smoke and steam, indifferent to what escaped its foundations.
Ahead, something is waiting.
And this time—
I am being taken somewhere on purpose.
Yet—
The eye is still watching.