We take the stairs down.
Step by step, deeper.
The stairwell narrows as we descend, stone walls sweating faint moisture. Liquid lanterns are fixed at intervals, their glow thin and bluish, barely enough to outline the steps ahead. They do not flicker. They do not warm the air.
A door comes into view. Steel. Thick.
Gary slows.
"Not through there," he says quietly. "That's the fourth floor."
"Still further down?" I ask.
"Yes."
Ashlynn looks past him, down into the stairwell's throat. "Will we ever go through the fourth floor?"
Gary doesn't answer right away. He resumes walking.
"We'll go there when we go there."
The stairs continue.
Each step feels heavier than the last. The sound of our boots carries too far, echoing down and not coming back the same way. I start counting without realizing it. I stop after I lose track.
The stairwell ends.
The fifth floor.
A final landing. No further descent. The stone here is darker, smoother, worn in a way that suggests long use—and long abandonment. A steel door blocks the way forward.
Painted at its center: a blue eye.
The same shape. The same color.
My chest tightens before I understand why.
I've seen it before. In the red notebook. Not drawn carefully—pressed, repeated, almost stamped. I didn't know what it meant then. I still don't.
But seeing it here makes the space feel smaller.
Gary reaches for his key.
Metal scrapes.
He frowns, tries again. Slower.
"It doesn't fit."
He pulls the key free, looks at it like it betrayed him.
"Damn it. Wrong one." He exhales through his teeth. "We'll have to go back up. Find the—"
Ashlynn steps forward.
"I can try."
Gary hesitates. Just a fraction. Then steps aside.
She reaches up and pulls a thin strip of metal from beneath her hair, hidden at the base of her skull. Her hands are steady, practiced.
She kneels and works the lock.
"Good thing we rescued Ashlynn," Gary says, attempting lightness.
She doesn't look back. "I rescued myself. Same as you."
A pause.
I hear the lock resist. Not jammed. Choosing.
Ashlynn's brow furrows. She adjusts, slower now.
"This isn't alchemy," she mutters. "It takes time."
Gary shifts his weight. "Alchemy takes time too."
She almost smiles.
Click.
The sound is soft, final.
The door unlocks.
Ashlynn leans back. "Open."
I tap her shoulder. "Good work."
She looks up at me, surprised, then nods once.
Gary places his hand on the door.
He doesn't open it immediately.
He tilts his head, listening—not with his ears alone. His breathing changes. Slower. More careful.
"T-shaped hallway," he whispers. "Empty. I think."
The word think hangs there longer than it should.
He pushes the door open.
We step into the hallway.
It looks exactly like the one on the third floor. Same width. Same angles. Same dead symmetry. For a moment, my body reacts as if we've gone nowhere at all.
We move toward the center.
The smell hits first.
There are piles of bodies—or what's left of them—dragged against the walls, slumped near doorways, scattered across the floor. Some are dark and collapsed, flesh already breaking down. Others still look recent. Too recent.
I slow.
Up close, the wounds don't look like weapon damage. No clean cuts. No impact fractures. Flesh has been torn away. Ragged. Uneven. Teeth marks. Scratches gouged deep enough to expose bone. Bite wounds clustered around the neck, the abdomen, places that end things quickly.
"These are lessies," Gary says.
"Lessies?" Ashlynn asks.
"That's what he calls them," I say, nodding at the bodies.
We move again. Carefully.
The hallway opens at the center—where the elevator shaft should be.
I stop.
The elevator isn't just broken. The shaft is torn open, metal peeled back and twisted. Far below, something large and dark rests at an angle.
A crash site.
"What happened to the elevators?" Ashlynn asks.
"Second-floor drop," Gary says. He shrugs, as if he has something to do with it.
He doesn't explain further.
"We should finish our mission quickly," he adds.
"Or what?" I ask.
He looks at me. His face is tight now. Focused.
"Why do you think this place is empty?"
I don't answer.
I look back at the shaft. Then at the bodies. Then down the branching corridors ahead.
My heart starts to race. Not controlled. Not measured. Fast. Loud. Urgent.
The thought isn't mine. It arrives fully formed.
Before I can examine it—before I can decide what it means-
The answer reveals itself.