Spellhacke- M. K. England Page 0,58

parts left are unstable at best. Fortunately, I’ve crawled through these tunnels dozens of times since I first learned about them, and I generally know what’s safe and what might crush us to death. At least, I did before the most recent quake. For the crushy parts, Remi has a shielding spell at the ready, just in case falling rocks try to kill us. Slight inconvenience.

Remi and I are silent as we make our way through the rubble of the old music building and into the basement. The wreckage has long since been picked over by university cleanup crews and scavengers alike. There’s a bright flash of gold or a splintered piece of wood here and there, shining out from where a crushed musical instrument lies beneath rubble too heavy to move. It’s a painful sight. My father used to play clarinet, and he got me started young on recorder, as soon as my fingers were big enough to cover the holes. I kept his clarinet and played at school for a little while after he died, but by the time I turned twelve and was allowed to have a job, it just didn’t seem practical anymore. I sold the clarinet for sixty creds. A ripoff, apparently, but I was too young to know better.

Once we’re underground, Remi draws closer to me and weaves a bit of sunnaz into a little ball, one for each of us to light the way. Their arm brushes against mine as they pass the little glowing sun to me, but it’s gone just as quickly. Is it my imagination, or are they standing farther away from me than before?

They’re still mad, probably. Maybe? Are we fighting? Are we not fighting? After I told everyone what I had learned, I thought we were calling a truce over the whole me-storming-out, them-abandoning-me thing.

I guess that was wishful thinking. I should have known better.

Farther up the tunnel, the sound of a slamming door echoes through the cavern, freezing us both in our tracks. We pause for thirty eternal seconds.

Epic Group Chat: We are SO UTTERLY SCREWED Edition

Ania: How’s it going?

Everything okay?

The notification is so sudden I nearly shout in alarm. Ania and her awful timing, I swear she does this on purpose. But it does give me an idea. Remi won’t talk out loud, but maybe they’ll reply to a message.

(private) You: Do you know anything about what’s in this archive?

Nothing, not even a flicker of acknowledgment. Maybe they have their notifications turned off?

Epic Group Chat: We are SO UTTERLY SCREWED Edition

Remi: Fine so far. We’re being all sneaky though, so give us a bit before messaging again.

You nearly gave Diz a heart attack

Ania: Whoops

Oh, okay, they were just replying to Ania first. They’ll reply to my message any second.

Any second now.

Any minute now.

Okay, yeah, they’re definitely still mad. Really mad. Maybe I should have invited one of the others along as a buffer. It’s like an itch in the front of my brain. Obviously, there’s only one answer here.

Ignore it completely.

I put on a burst of speed and pull ahead of Remi, walking faster down the broken-down tunnel, taking far less care than I probably should around the crumbled remains. The whole place smells musty, mostly of dampness trapped in an enclosed space, but somehow a bit of that gym-sock dorm-room smell too, even after all this time. Wall-mounted screens with the university’s logo on the frame, dark and cracked, sit at regular intervals, and a few laminated student-made flyers for clubs and parties still litter the ground. A lot of things can decompose in ten years’ time. Apparently a lot can still be left behind too.

If I could stand to slow down for a second, I’d have my little drone fly the tunnel to make sure it’s stayed clear of major debris since the most recent earthquake, but oh well. We’ll go as far as we can, and if we need to pop above ground, so be it.

We’re lucky, though. We turn one last corner, following my mental map of the university, and the tunnel opens up into a small foyer with a branch tunnel marked by a half-fallen metal sign: THE PARK-TORRES BUILDING, jointly named for the families that funded the original department and the new building. We’re here. I glance quickly over my shoulder to make sure Remi is still with me, then continue on.

No message from them. Not a word.

This is fine.

Fifteen

THE DOOR INTO THE MAIN building looks like it hasn’t been