Kale met him at the landing, uninvited. He wore his training shirt backwards and carried a knife only half sheathed. "You expecting trouble?" Kale asked, cracking a smile as if trouble could ever be anything but on schedule.
Soren said, "You didn't have to follow."
Kale: "And yet, here I am. Which way's the rat maze from here?"
They moved through the dark in tandem, Kale's breath loud enough to count, Soren's hand never more than two fingers from the grip of his blade. At level three, the corridor pinched down to a ribcage's width, air cold and sharp with the bite of preservation salts. The torches here were replaced by sigil-lights, each one flickering a soft blue in a pattern that implied both surveillance and warning. Soren kept the ledger pressed to his chest and walked until the corridor made a forced turn left. The runes here were older, the kind that didn't just record history but threatened to rewrite it if you lingered.
