Ash moved like water in the dark, a silent current pulling Clara deeper into the secret, skeletal structure of Viregate. The corridor was narrow and low-ceilinged, carved from the raw, weeping stone of the mountain. It was a place of function, not beauty, smelling of damp earth, coal dust, and something else—the faint, cloying scent of forgotten things.
Clara followed close behind him, her hand trailing along the slimy wall to steady herself. Her heart was a frantic drum against her ribs, a wild, terrified rhythm in the suffocating silence. Every scrape of her soft-soled shoe sounded like a shout. She was placing her life, her fate, in the hands of a boy she had never heard speak, a boy who was as much a prisoner as she was. It was a mad, desperate gamble, and it was the only one she had.
