The cellar door closed behind them with a weighty thud. The light was gone in an instant, and Genevieve was completely blind. She bounced back and forth in place, sucking air through her teeth, not wanting to keep her feet on the unbearably cold stone any longer than she needed to. “Is… this it?” she asked, more nervous than she wanted to let on.

“There’s an entrance. Right over there. Bit of a squeeze, but we’re almost in the clear, promise.”

“Over… where, exactly?” How the hell was Genevieve supposed to tell where anything was in the pitch dark? “I can’t see a thing.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry, I forgot. Lemme just, uh–here. I’m gonna take your hand.”

“Okay?”

A rough, scaled hand closed itself around Genevieve’s. She didn’t have time to notice it when they were running, but now the contrast took her by surprise. Princesses were supposed to be pretty and petite, but royal living had never made her feel soft and dainty the way Marcie’s touch did. For the first time in her life, it hadn’t even occurred to someone that she should be treated with delicacy. It was a strange thing to realize. At the very least for how it put everything else into context.

Genevieve was led to… somewhere in the room. She really had no idea where. She’d only seen a glimpse of it in the sunlight when they first slipped inside, and she hadn’t taken in the layout at all. After just a few steps, though, Marcie let go of her hand. “All right. Hold on. Lemme move this.”

Marcie grunted and Genevieve could hear something being dragged across the floor. Gradually, a small flicker of torchlight appeared through a hole in the wall, roughly three feet tall and wide. “Go ahead,” Marcie said. “Gotta crawl through it a bit. I’ll come in after you.”

“Where in the name of the Pulse are you taking me?” Genevieve asked. In the dark, all the hesitation she had left behind was catching up to her.

“S’a little hidey-hole someone I know keeps. Fellow named Lenn. Runs sort of a… religious thing down here. Like, separatist stuff, all talking about how the King runs the church and it’s a corrupt institution and that kinda junk. You’re not exactly allowed to say that in public, so, weird little cavern. I helped them out when they had some trouble with the crown and their metal men a while back, and I wasn't doin' it for my own sake or nothing, but technically they owe me. If the Pulse doesn’t fill them with the spirit of altruism or whatever it does to spiritual types, I’ll cash in the favor.”

"And in your estimation this Lenn person is… reliable? Trustworthy?"

"Ah, sure," Marcie said, her silhouette shifting in front of the tiny bit of light from the hole. "They're, y'know, the honest kind of devout. Read their books, came to their own conclusions. Decided they were gonna have principles and stick to ‘em. So, like, the kind of religious type religious types aren’t so fond of, y’know?”

It was a funny way to describe someone. But Genevieve knew what she meant. “It sounds like you think highly of them.”

“I respect ‘em,” Marcie said. “Dunno if that’s the same thing or not.”

“I think it’s close enough.” Genevieve took a deep breath and got down on her knees to crawl through the small hole. She was scraped up and worn down, mentally and physically, but she was hoping this would be the last hurdle she’d face for the day. “Wish me luck.”

“Uh.. sure?” Marcie said. “I mean, I’m right here, I’m not gonna let nothin’ happen. So you don’t gotta worry about luck. But, uh, have some anyway. Might as well.”

“I’ll be sure to make good use of it.” Genevieve crawled through the hole, poking her head out to the other side. She froze in place when she realized that other side was a three-foot drop directly onto the stone floor below.

“Oh, uh, mind the drop,” Marcie said. Apparently it took her until now to remember she should have said something. “It’s a bit of a big one.”

“I can see. It’s fine. Let me just swing around here.” Genevieve carefully turned her body around and squeezed herself through the entrance, slipping her legs over the ledge so she could carefully drop down feet-first. “Oof,” she muttered as her feet hit the stone floor. Once again she took a moment to try and brush herself off. She was getting a little tired of being covered in grit and soil. “It’s fine,” she called back to Marcie. “I made it.”

“Knew you had it in ya.” Marcie slid through the hole easily, like a cat shrugging its way through a hole in the front door, and dropped onto her feet without any hesitation. Once she was on the ground she turned around and pulled a small handle attached to what Genevieve could now see was a metal container. With surprisingly little effort Marcie slid it back into place, covering up the hole. “We should be in the clear now, or at least as close as we’re gonna get. I’m sure you wanna kick up your feet for a while, so let’s head, uh…”

She turned her head to look up and down the tunnel they were in. It was a surprisingly solid, well-crafted stone corridor, with occasional sconces on the wall, some of which were mercifully occupied by lit torches. The underground was still quite dark, but it was much better than stumbling about in pitch blackness.

“...All right, I haven’t exactly spent a lot of time spelunking down here,” Marcie admitted. “So, uh, we might have to just kinda guess. We’ll end up somewhere I recognize eventually, probably.”

“Eventually?” Genevieve repeated. “Probably?”

“Hey, look, it’s not a good plan,” Marcie said. “But it’s what I got.”

“And more than I have.” Genevieve sighed. “So I’ll have to accept it.”

“Look at it this way,” Marcie said. “Sooner we get moving, sooner we get lost.” She arbitrarily turned to the right and walked down the hall, waving her hand for Genevieve to follow. “C’mon, we’re not gonna get anywhere just standin’ still.”

Genevieve followed Marcie down the corridor, and then down another, and another. From what she could tell, the space they were in wasn’t massive, but the dark stone walls were hard to distinguish from one another, and she couldn’t focus enough to map out the area in her head with her feet aching and her stomach still doing backflips. Every now and then they passed a heavy wooden door, but Marcie didn’t seem interested in any of them, so Genevieve assumed she knew they weren't what they were looking for. Eventually, though, she couldn’t help but ask. “Do you know what’s in there?” she asked as they passed a pair of wide double doors.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Hm?” Marcie glanced over at the door, as though she hadn’t even noticed or thought about it. “Uh… no.”

“Could it be somewhere to stop and sit for a bit, at least?”

“Uh… probably not. Or, well, I mean, I guess it could be.” Marcie stepped up to the door and peered through a small hole set into it. “Eh. Looks like it’s just one of those big libraries or whatever. I mean, there’s probably some chairs inside, like for folks to read, but Lenn wouldn’t want us mucking around too much in there.” She turned to look at Genevieve, and considered her for a few moments, her mouth gradually curling into a frown and her brow furrowing. “But… if you just wanna get off your feet for a bit, it’s probably not a big deal so long as we don’t start digging through the records and junk. Assuming we can get the thing open at all, that is.” She tried the door handle, and when it didn’t turn, she jiggled at it a few times. That didn’t work either, so she started yanking on the handle forcefully, pulling on the door with so much strength it rattled against the stone with a loud thunk.

Genevieve opened her mouth to warn Marcie off that plan, but luckily she had enough sense to stop on her own. “Yeah, that’s locked,” she said in the blunt way Genevieve was learning to expect from her. “Old locks, though, probably not that hard to coax ‘em open if I really wanted to. Without just blasting them, I mean. That’d work but I don’t wanna make Lenn deal with it.”

“No, you don’t need to do any of that. It’s better that you don’t, in fact.” Genevieve put an arm on Marcie’s shoulder and gently pulled her back from the door. “Let’s just keep moving. We’re bound to run into something or someone sooner or later, I have to imagine. There’s an old trick about following the right hand wall–”

“Who goes there?” a steady, level voice called out, interrupting Genevieve in the middle of her thought. The light of a lantern could be seen around the corner, shining into the corridor ahead, and footsteps echoed around the stone walls.

A tall, lanky figure with a spear in one hand and a lantern in the other walked into the hall. Their skin was khaki, perhaps paled by a lack of sunlight, and they wore a thin wool shirt with grey linen pants that hung baggily on their thin body. They had long, straight, dark brown hair hanging down over one eye, and the bottom half of their face was covered by a scarf wrapped around their head. "If you come in peace,” they said, leveling the tip of their spear towards Marcie and Genevieve, “stay where you are."

If Genevieve was startled by the new arrival, she would have to be startled for two, because Marcie was as unconcerned as ever. "C'mon, Lenn," she said, brushing past the point of the spear without a care in the world. "Who do you think you're talking to?"

"Ah. Marcie. It's you." The tension in their shoulders dropped and they lifted up the spear, setting the base of it on the ground. “I have a front door, you realize.”

“Not while the metal men are out combin’ the city you don’t," Marcie retorted, her tail flicking behind her impishly.

“In that case, you're right. I don't have a front door.” Lenn glanced over at Genevieve. They took her in curiously, and Genevieve could tell there were gears turning in their head. "Marcie, tell me. Are those metal men marching through the city because you've run off with the Princess our sovereign whelp is meant to wed?"

"Hey, I didn't run off with her!" Marcie protested. "I mean… okay I did run off. And she did come with me. We ran off together so, like. I did run off with her. But only in, like–not in the–"

"Ms. Silver did me a great service," Genevieve said, speaking from the diaphragm as she took a step forward. Diplomacy means busting out the Royal Voice. "I was trapped in a very bad situation, and she saved me from it out of the goodness of her heart. I'm very grateful for her help."

Lenn sighed, their lamp flickering in the dark hall. "Yes, that's exactly what she would do. Impulsively, I'm sure, and without an exit strategy." They turned back and walked around the corner they came from, tilting their head to look at Genevieve over their shoulder. "Come with me, then. You can stay here until we figure out what to do next. I have some spare clothes and shoes on hand for those who need them. I’d ask if you want them, but I think I would be a bad host if I didn’t insist."

“I… thank you,” Genevieve said. She was not going to complain for a second, after all she had been through, about a pair of shoes and some clothes that didn’t feel like they were trying to smother her.

Lenn led them down a long corridor. Unlike Marcie, they actually knew where they were going, and Genevieve finally started feeling like the ordeal was over. At least for now.

While they walked, Lenn glanced back at Marcie and spoke. “By the way, Marcie. Why did you lead her all the way out here to the archives?”

“You’re giving me too much credit, Lenn.” Marcie jabbed her thumb randomly at the wall. “I can’t tell where stuff is down here, all the tunnels look the damn same and it’s not like you put up signs.”

“There are signs,” Lenn said, indicating a metal plaque on the wall they just passed.

“Okay, fine, but they’re like a hundred years old and it’s not like any of them say ‘this way to Lenn’s sketchy dungeon clinic,’ now do they?”

Lenn’s eyes narrowed as they glared at Marcie. “I know you’re being facetious, Marcie,” they said. “But I’ve worked very hard to provide care for those the crown would prefer to abandon. And though they’ve fallen into disuse, I have made every effort to reclaim the abbey’s archives as a site that honors the True Pulse and its call to service. So I would greatly appreciate it if you chose not to malign my efforts.”

“Yeah, yeah, all right, that was uncalled for. I apologize, Lenn. You’re doin’ good and I don’t wanna take away from that.”

“Apology accepted. All is forgiven.” Lenn’s shoulders, which had tensed up considerably, fell back to ease.

After only another few minutes of walking Lenn turned another corner and opened a door. “Here,” they said, holding it open for Genevieve and Marcie. “There are a few spare cots in this room. You can sit down and rest here, if you would like to. And if you wouldn’t like to, you can take that ‘can’ as a ‘should,’ and a ‘will.’ I’m certain that both of you need to rest, and it isn’t my manner to let the tired and worn keep grinding themselves down, no matter how they insist.”

“I assure you I need no convincing at all,” Genevieve said.

“I’m doing fine, though,” Marcie said. “I mean, I won’t say no to putting my feet up, but I’m not, like, hurtin’ for it or nothing.”

“I need you to know, Marcie,” Lenn monotoned glibly, “that people like are you are exactly the reason I’m so insistent in the first place.”

“People with horns and scales, you mean?”

“People who like acting tough.” Once Genevieve and Marcie stepped through the doorway, Lenn followed after them with their lantern. It was a small room, some kind of dormitory by the look of it, with a pair of cots lined up against the far wall and two desks near the door. Before anything else Lenn walked to the desks and lit the candles resting on them with their lantern.

While they were doing that, Marcie was busy with her own hang-ups. “What d’ya mean, tough?” she asked. “I don’t think I’m tough. I just got more stamina than most. S’not, like, special or nothing, just is what it is.”

“You may have more stamina than most, but that doesn’t mean you can keep going forever. If you aren’t careful, it will creep up on you, and you’ll be worse off than if you had just taken a rest when you could afford to.” Lenn gave Marcie a look. “So I would greatly appreciate it if you took a seat for a while.”

“Hey, it’s fine,” Marcie said, crossing the room to plop herself down on the far cot. “Happy to do it. Don’t gotta be on my case or nothin’.”

Lenn folded their arms across their chest, the skeptical frown they were giving Marcie almost visible through their scarf. “Well,” they said in a deadpan. “I’m very glad that I don’t.”