Chapter CL: Beneath the Surface

The fog made it hard to tell the time of day with any reliability, but the setting of the sun was still an obvious thing just by the waning of what light managed to pierce through the gloom. By the time we made it back to the apartment, that light was almost entirely gone, and the gas lamps that lined the streets were the only beacons we had in the dense mist.

Mordred, at least, didn’t seem to need them to find her way back. I had to wonder if her Instinct skill really was just that infallible.

When we walked in through the front door, Flamel greeted us with a smile. “You’re just in time,” he said. “Renée finished supper mere minutes ago. Mister Tohsaka and Alice have already retired to the dining room, as has Doctor Jekyll.”

A sour look crossed Emiya’s face. “I want to complain, but the terms of our deal never covered what to do if one of us was unavailable, so I have no one but myself to blame.”

“There’s always tomorrow!” Rika said brightly. He snorted.

True to Flamel’s word, Tohsaka, Alice, and Jekyll were all waiting in the dining room, plates set out and waiting with half of a dinner spread already sitting in front of them. As our group stepped into the dining room, Renée chose that moment to appear from the kitchen, carrying a silvery platter with yet more food.

She showed no surprise to see us. She just looked up, eyes roving over each of us in turn, and blinked.

“You’ve returned,” she said as though she had known the exact second of our arrival well in advance. “I see. My apologies, Mister Emiya, but as I could not be sure when to expect you, I had no other choice than to prepare supper without you.”

Emiya sighed and waved it off. “It’s fine. I would have done the same if our situations were reversed, so it would be hypocritical of me to blame you for it.”

I might have been imagining it, but I thought I saw Renée’s lips twitch and threaten to smile, there and gone so quickly that I wasn’t sure it had happened at all. She gave a short incline of her head and set the platter she was holding down on the table. To us, she said, “I hope you enjoy your meal all the same.”

“I’m sure we will,” Ritsuka said politely.

“Yes,” Mash agreed brightly. “You’re an excellent cook, after all, Miss Renée!”

“You flatter me,” Renée demurred in her characteristic monotone.

“If you’re all done fluffing her ego,” said Tohsaka, “can we actually get around to eating now?”

“Yes, of course,” Renée said immediately. “I shall go and bring the rest of the food presently.”

“I’ll go help,” Emiya added. Renée froze for a second, but said nothing against it and made no comment as he followed her into the kitchen.

As for the rest of us, we each found our usual seats, with Jackie next to me on one side, Arash on the other, and the twins sandwiched between Mash and Fran. Once Emiya and Renée returned with the rest of the food, we all started dishing ourselves up and picking out whatever we thought was good.

There wasn’t as much meat as there had been the last few days. I wasn’t sure anyone else really noticed, because Renée had done as good a job as she had always done, but I figured immediately that Jekyll’s stores of perishables must have been starting to run low. With no idea how long it would take us to finish this Singularity and take out the last mastermind, M, and no idea that we had dealt with Babbage already, she must have been rationing what was left.

How many people in the city were even that fortunate? Not enough that we could afford to waste any time, I thought.

I did my best not to think about it too hard and enjoyed dinner for what it was worth. No one else, at least, had any complaints, and certainly not Jackie. I had the thought that we were spoiling her, and then immediately squashed it with the reminder that this was the richest food she’d ever eaten and probably the most stable source of food she’d ever had. She could do with some spoiling.

After dinner had been eaten, we sat around for a few minutes and savored dessert, and once everything had a chance to settle, it was time to get down to business.

“Now,” said Flamel, “if you would, perhaps you might explain what it is you managed to discover during your investigation this afternoon?”

The twins shared a look, then looked at me, and I just looked back. “Ritsuka?”

Taking the hint, he sighed and gathered himself, then launched into the story of what had happened, “Well, we managed to find several groups of Helter Skelter, and it turned out that Fran could use them to find the source…”

He explained our trek across London and our eventual destination in Westminster, then the fight with the high spec Helter Skelter, the break we took afterwards in the House of Parliament, and finally, Charles Babbage. Naturally, of course, he had to talk about what we had learned about Angrboða and the mysterious M, including how he had first brainwashed Babbage, and then when that started to fray around the edges, how he had resorted to using Command Spells, one to force Babbage to fight us and a second to make him self-destruct.

Jekyll, Flamel, and Tohsaka all looked disturbed by the information.

“Two Command Spells, you say,” Flamel murmured, stroking his beard. “And Professor Babbage, of course, being neither an accomplished mage nor possessing the Magic Resistance necessary, could not fight either one. Worrying, that our final mastermind is so secure in his position that he would use two such rare resources in such quick succession.”

“Being as I am no accomplished mage myself, I cannot much say aught of substance regarding such things,” Jekyll began, “but if it is as rare and valuable a resource as you indicate, then it would seem to me that M’s willingness to spend them in such a frivolous manner would speak either to desperation or plenty.”

“Maybe both,” I said. “I think it’s a safe assumption that M, whoever he is, is currently in the same place as Angrboða.” It wasn’t a guarantee, but I was willing to stake my guess on it. “Even if he had other Servants at his disposal, there’s no way he’d be eager to risk a confrontation with all of us at the same time.”

Especially not if he was outnumbered. Right now, buying time was more to his advantage than ours, and the more time he had to prepare, the harder it would be for us to take the fight to him.

“Do we still not know who this M even is?” asked Tohsaka.

“Unfortunately, no,” said Arash. “Babbage told us as much as he could, but he also said that one of the things M did was erase his true name from Babbage’s mind. That first initial is still all we have.”

At this point, given what we knew? My suspicion was that M was the famous villain, James Moriarty, if only because we’d had enough supposedly fictional characters show up that I had to acknowledge the possibility that he would be very real. There were only two things that gave me any reason to think otherwise, one being that we’d seen neither hide nor hair of Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, or any other opponent that would almost certainly be summoned to fight against him. The other was that Moriarty, who I was fairly sure would be a Caster of some kind, wouldn’t be the kind of Caster capable of casting spells “beyond human wisdom,” at least not the traditional kind expected of a magus.

There were too many holes in it for me to be confident enough to share that theory, so I kept it to myself.

“Then, I assume that our original plans remain largely unchanged?” Flamel asked. “That is, it is still your intent that we should investigate the ley lines for signs of the enemy tomorrow?”

“Yes,” I answered. “We just happen to have a better idea of where we should be looking along those ley lines than we did earlier today.”

Rika’s brow furrowed. “We do?”

“Oh,” her brother said. “What Babbage said about Angrboða being ‘under…’ You think he meant under the ley lines, Senpai?”

“Not just underneath them,” I told them both, “but in the Underground.”

Flamel sucked in a breath.

“What?” said Jeanne Alter. “What the f-fudge are you talking about?”

“Oh my,” said Flamel. “That…would certainly explain why it is we have yet to detect their presence. It’s ingenious, really, especially as the first and most obvious place would be the Clock Tower.”

“Yes,” Jekyll agreed, “yes, it most certainly would be. Although our foe is a dastardly villain worthy of the greatest scorn and condemnation, I must admit that he is also a clever fellow. Even I would not have thought to look there.”

“If it’s not too much trouble,” Tohsaka began, “maybe someone would like to explain it to the rest of us? Just to make sure we’re all on the same page.”

“The London Underground is a subterranean railway system,” Mash explained. “Although it would later be expanded upon to reach more areas of the city, the original structures were first built in the nineteenth…u-um, this era, I mean, and should be accessible…in several places, actually, including one nearby.”

“It’s a subway,” Rika said, sounding impressed. “Wow. Didn’t know they built those this far back.”

Jekyll gave her a strange look. “A…subway?”

“Eat fresh,” Rika replied immediately. Her brother gave her a sharp poke in the side. “Ow!”

“A more modern word for what Mash just described,” I explained shortly. “Does that answer your question, Tohsaka?”

Tohsaka grimaced, but after a moment, reluctantly said, “Well enough, I suppose.”

He looked like he wanted to ask what a railway was. Since he was from the 1790s, at a guess, he’d probably never even seen a train before, probably never even heard of one — if they’d even been invented yet — and since I didn’t really want to try and explain it, I let it slide.

I turned back to Flamel. “Do you still plan on coming with us?”

He hummed. “Yes. Not merely because — as a Caster and a magus — I am the best suited to the task, but also… Well, quite frankly, I find that I, too, would like to see the face of the man behind this catastrophe. I would like to know his name and his reasoning for this madness, and to see him brought to justice for it.”

Tohsaka clicked his tongue. “Does that mean I’ll be staying behind again?”

Someone obviously needed to, just in case it turned out we couldn’t find M and Angrboða before we had to stop and come back, but if it turned out that we were headed out to the final battle tomorrow morning, then I wanted a Servant like Nursery Rhyme there to help. Especially if we really did have to face another Demon God at the end of it all.

The question that had to follow that, of course, was who would be staying behind if not Tohsaka and Nursery Rhyme. A quick glance across our gathered group didn’t give me a great answer, but…if I thought about it from the perspective of who could deal the most damage to another of those Demon Gods, there was one Servant who would obviously have trouble, just because he couldn’t safely use his Noble Phantasm.

He could double as a secure line back to the apartment, too.

I turned to Arash. “If Tohsaka and Alice are coming along, then we’ll need you to stay behind and protect Doctor Jekyll, Fran, Renée, Andersen, and the apartment.”

“Sure,” he said, “I can do that.”

“Uhn!” Fran protested. “Ah, uhn, uhn!”

I had sort of implied that, hadn’t I? I hadn’t made any promises outright, of course, but I could see how the way I’d worded things earlier would give her that impression.

“You don’t have a good way to defend yourself,” I told her. She grimaced, but didn’t have an argument to prove me wrong.

“If that’s all you’re worried about, I can protect her again,” Mordred offered. “It’s no skin off my nose.”

“Look at you, the loyal guard dog,” Jeanne Alter jeered. Mordred flipped her the bird in response.

“I…think we’re probably going to need you at your best,” Ritsuka hedged. “Fran…”

“I can protect her,” Mash interjected. Ritsuka blinked.

“You can?”

Mash nodded firmly. “Yes. It’s true, I…still don’t know the true name of the Noble Phantasm belonging to the Heroic Spirit inside of me, even though this is our fifth Singularity. I-I understand that…as long as that’s the case, I’m not performing at my best. But…” She set her mouth and squared her shoulders. “Senpai. If it’s too much for me to protect even one extra person, then there wouldn’t be any reason for me to be here. If a single extra burden is too much, then I wouldn’t even deserve to be your Servant in the first place!”

“Look at you!” Mordred grinned. “Now you’re starting to act like a proper Servant, Shieldy! Man, even that shield bastard has to be looking on with envy right now!”

Twin spots of pink bloomed on Mash’s cheeks. “You really think so, Sir Mordred?”

“I’m sure of it!”

I wasn’t quite sure how much to trust Mordred’s judgment of Galahad, but I could at least admit that she definitely knew him better than we did, so there wasn’t much choice.

“If you’re sure, Mash…” Ritsuka said.

Mash nodded again. “I am! Master, I will protect Fran, along with everyone else!”

“Go, Cinnabon!” Rika cheered.

“Fou-fou!” the little gremlin cried. It had been quiet the last while, but I guess it was too much to hope that it had gotten lost out in the fog.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Then Fran, Tohsaka, Alice, and Flamel will join us in our investigation tomorrow morning,” I allowed. “We’ll begin with the nearest station and work our way west. I’m sure Da Vinci will have a map we can use to navigate it.”

“Oh, goodie!” said Nursery Rhyme. “Do I finally get to play?”

“It certainly looks that way, doesn’t it?” said Tohsaka. “Of course, if the investigation runs too long, then we’re going to have to return to the apartment before the fog rolls in, won’t we?”

“Unless Da Vinci has another gas mask you can use, yes.”

His lips drew tight. We both knew that she wouldn’t. It wasn’t that she couldn’t, but that our supplies were stretched thin enough that she would need to jump through a lot of hoops to find the resources needed to make a spare. I could see Marie approving of it as a matter of pride, but that was why Da Vinci probably wouldn’t even have brought up the possibility.

Tohsaka sighed. “Fine. If that’s the way it has to be, then I guess I have no right to complain.”

Jackie tugged on my sleeve. “Are we coming along, too, Mommy?”

“Of course,” was my immediate answer. Jackie smiled.

“Yay!” she said. “Alice, we’re all going together!”

“It’s going to be oh so much fun!” Nursery Rhyme agreed.

What a strange definition of fun she had. If you just looked at her, she didn’t look all that strange, but she had a tendency to speak softly and infrequently, and when she did speak, it was often something that only seemed unusual because of the context in which it was said.

In that sense, she kind of reminded me of Glaistig Uaine.

With the responsibilities divvied up, we spent the rest of the night preparing so that we could once more maximize the time we had in the morning before the fog came back. Part of that, of course, was reaching out to Da Vinci, who was only too happy to provide us with the map we needed of the Underground, with helpfully labeled markers that showed the entrances across the city.

“I know you only asked for the data from that era,” was what she said, “but I included the lines that would be added over the course of the next hundred years as well, just in case. They’re outlined in yellow so that you know which ones are which. Hopefully, you won’t need them.”

It was good that she’d thought ahead and given us that, too, but I could only hope that we wouldn’t need them. This was going to be a big enough pain in the ass to investigate as it was, and adding yet more routes on top of it would only make it more so — and stack on more hours we had to spend searching them.

We also touched base with Marie and Romani to let them know what we’d found out and where we were planning on going next. They’d already known that we had defeated Babbage, of course, because they could see it on their sensors, but neither of them was particularly happy about the idea of sending us down into the Underground.

“It’s not that it’s going to be all that much harder to track you or anything,” Romani told us, “but I have to admit, I’m not super excited about you guys going down there when this M guy could just drop the ceiling on you.”

“Thanks, Doc,” said Rika, “I was trying real hard not to think about that!”

Romani laughed awkwardly. “Sorry?”

Marie wasn’t any more pleased, but she consoled herself with the fact that us investigating the ley lines meant that we should be able to contact Chaldea more easily if we happened to need some assistance.

“So don’t hesitate to ask!” she ordered sternly. “The most important thing is still that all of you survive to continue the Grand Order, which means no unnecessary risk-taking!”

“Of course, Director.”

And as expected, Da Vinci didn’t have a spare gas mask for Tohsaka to use tomorrow.

“I’m many things, but I’m afraid a miracle worker isn’t one of them,” she told us apologetically. “If we had the resources to spare, then I think I could have one ready for you in the morning, but I’m sorry to say that I’m stretched a little too thin to make one from scratch right now. I do, however, have something else for you.”

Rika perked up. “Another present? Nose plugs? Air freshener? A hermetically sealed helmet?”

“Gesundheit,” Ritsuka said sardonically. She stuck her tongue back out at him.

“Nothing that can help you with your fog situation, sorry,” Da Vinci replied, laughter in her voice. “It should help with the problem of keeping in touch with the others at the apartment, however, so once more, Mash, if you would…”

When the room was cleared and her shield set down, the magic circle formed and the Rayshift deposited another box, this one even smaller than the one that held my mask. Inside of it turned out to be a set of metallic wristbands, one for Jekyll, one for Renée, and one for Tohsaka.

“Since you’ve had to split up so often, it seemed prudent to leave a more reliable method of communication behind, just in case something happens,” Da Vinci explained. “We’ll need you to return them once the Singularity is resolved and the deviations start being corrected, but for now, the Master candidates they originally belonged to…aren’t using them at the moment.”

Mash and Ritsuka both sucked in sharp breaths, and any trace of a smile fled Rika’s face. They understood what Da Vinci was implying, although the others didn’t ask for details. Whether out of courtesy or simple lack of interest, I couldn’t say for sure.

Tohsaka had to fiddle with his a little before he figured out how to put it on, but Jekyll examined his curiously instead of fitting it around his wrist immediately.

“You have my thanks, Miss Da Vinci,” he said. “I’m certain that this device will prove its usefulness in the coming days.”

“If you need any help figuring out how to use it, Taylor or Mash should be able to explain it,” Da Vinci said. “I’m afraid the instruction manual is usually delivered during orientation and couldn’t be miniaturized in time, so I’ll have to put the burden on their shoulders. My apologies.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s no trouble, Miss Da Vinci.”

And with everything taken care of for the moment, that was it. Those were all the preparations we could put into our outing tomorrow morning, at least with the supplies and support we had access to then and there. The only other things Marie, Romani, and Da Vinci could do were wish us luck and promise to watch our progress closely.

When ten o’clock rolled around, we all got ready for bed, then climbed the stairs to the second floor. This time, Jackie didn’t put up much of a fight at all about dematerializing her knives, and she was only too happy to snuggle up in my arms as though she really was my daughter.

If she came back with us once this was all over… Yeah, she probably wasn’t going to want to have her own room, was she? I…wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that. I wasn’t sure what it would mean to be her mother on a longer term basis or how I would handle it. She was generally pretty agreeable now, but if she started acting more like a child her age in other ways? How did I punish her?

That was a bridge I’d cross when I came to it.

That night, I slept strangely well, and if I dreamed, then by the time I woke up the next morning, I remembered none of it. I was the first up out of our group, but not by long, because Jackie woke almost as though she’d set an alarm to my circadian rhythm, and she was only too happy to give me a smile and say, “Good morning, Mommy.”

“Good morning, Jackie,” I replied.

The others slowly followed, waking up one by one as I was getting dressed, first with Tohsaka, then Ritsuka, then Mash, then Fran, and finally, Rika, who groggily asked for “five more minutes” and was mercilessly told that if she wasn’t up in time for breakfast, then she wasn’t getting any. She climbed out of bed very quickly after that.

The power her stomach held over that girl, at least when it came to Emiya’s — and now Renée’s — cooking.

By the time we all made our way down the stairs, the smell of breakfast was strong in the air, and Rika was very much awake, as though that alone was enough to invigorate her. She was nearly vibrating with her excitement.

“Last night was boring,” Jeanne Alter complained when we entered the parlor, which I took to mean that nothing had happened while we were asleep.

“Thanks for keeping watch,” Ritsuka told her.

She scoffed and waved him off, a roll of her wrist over the back of the sofa. “Not like I had anything better to do around here. Let me know when breakfast is ready. I’m too comfy to get up right now.”

“Will do,” Ritsuka said.

The rest of our alliance was waiting for us in the dining room, already sipping on a morning cup of tea, and Flamel, Jekyll, and Mordred all gave us a greeting of their own when we came in. Mordred’s, naturally, was a simple, “Yo!”

We all took a seat, and when Renée came out of the kitchen several minutes later carrying a silvery platter, Jeanne Alter entered the room shortly thereafter, unwilling to miss the chance at a good meal.

Breakfast, of course, was delicious, and enjoyed by everyone except Emiya, who never seemed to want to admit that Renée was anything approaching as good a cook as he was. We spent a few minutes afterwards letting our food settle and digest, but after that, it was time for us to get going and begin the day’s investigation.

Fortunately, it didn’t take long for everyone to put on the finishing touches, like slipping their shoes on or checking to make sure they had all of their equipment and such, and I tucked my mask into my equipment pouch. I was definitely going to need it later on, if we didn’t find anything before the fog rolled in, at least, but there was no point in wearing it before then, and I was honestly more comfortable leaving it off.

I wasn’t the person I’d been even two years ago, when I first gave it to Da Vinci, and I didn’t really want to be.

“I’ll keep an eye on things here,” Arash promised. “Stay safe, everyone.”

“Of course.”

The one who should be saying something like that was me. After all, most of our Servants were going to be coming with us, and it would really only be him and Andersen to protect the apartment. Considering Andersen being Andersen, what that actually meant was that Arash would be the sole defender.

But as much as that bothered me, if this really was the final battle, then we couldn’t afford to leave behind anyone else.

“Don’t worry, Arash!” said Rika. “We’ve got Cinnabon with us, and Jalter, and Mo-chan! The bad guys won’t know what hit ‘em!”

“We’re here, too, you know,” Tohsaka grumbled.

“And Tohsaka and Alice,” Rika added.

Arash chuckled. “Then I’ll leave my Master in everyone’s capable hands.”

“I won’t let anything happen to Miss Taylor,” Mash swore.

Emiya chose that moment to appear, walking out of the tea room and crossing the parlor. “Looks like I’m the last one to show up.” He held up another square-ish package, wrapped in a linen napkin, pinching the knot between his thumb, middle, and forefinger. “That maid had another gift for us to take with us. More of those cakes, by the smell of them.”

He handed it over to Mash, who accepted it gingerly. “Oh,” she said. “Miss Renée is very thoughtful, isn’t she?”

She carefully placed it in the compartment in her shield, normally used to hold the Grails we retrieved.

“It’s her way of showing affection,” Flamel revealed.

“You guys done flapping your gums yet? C’mon,” said Mordred. “We’re burning daylight. Let’s just get this thing going already.”

“Right.” I brought up the map again, then changed the mode over so that the overlay of the London Underground routes sat above it in glowing, gently curving lines. “The nearest station isn’t that far off.” I pointed out the small, swollen dot, one of several that sat along the length of each of those lines. “It’ll only take us a few minutes to reach it. If everyone else is ready, we can go now.”

There were no objections, so we filed out of the house and into the street, a comically large group with comically mismatched people — three knights in shining armor, a man in a cloak and Renaissance era breeches and tunic, three people dressed in futuristic slacks (a skirt, in Rika’s case) and shirts, a man in a kimono over a business suit, a young girl who could have been that man’s daughter, wearing a flowery pink kimono, a girl in a dirty wedding gown, a man in futuristic body armor, and a girl in a dirty, tattered black cloak.

“Fou!”

…And a gremlin that didn’t know when to keel over and die.

Unfortunately, it was still something like fifty years too early for him to get hit by a car crossing the road, so I guess I just had to keep putting up with his presence. At least he was more interested in riding on Mash’s shoulder than trying to ride on mine.

I could give him that much for saving my life the other day.

The streets, however, were still as empty as they had been the past several days, and so there was no one to give us strange looks or cross to the opposite side of the street to avoid our group. Likely, they were all still terrified to leave their houses, despite the clear morning, for fear that the mist might return at any moment and smother them. I couldn’t say that I necessarily blamed them, but I didn’t know how long they could afford to keep avoiding the outside when everyone’s supplies must have been running low by this point.

All the more reason to finish this as quickly as possible, something we’d known since we first arrived here.

True to my word, it didn’t take us long at all to make our way to the first station leading down into the Underground, and it was only a couple of minutes of walking before we arrived at a five or six story building that looked like it had been constructed at the same time as the British Museum using much the same materials. The base was some sort of marbled brown stone, but the rest of the building that sat on top of it was a familiar, creamy off white color, leading up into an overhang that jutted out over the windows of the fourth floor and a blocky roof covered in grayish blue tiles.

On the bottom floor was a large entryway, broad enough across for four people to comfortably walk through side by side, five if they squeezed together, and it led almost immediately into a stairway that descended below the pavement and beneath the ground. The sign hanging above it read, “Mansion House Station.”

“This is it,” I announced.

“Oof,” said Rika, peering into the darkened stairway, which was much narrower. “Spooky, spooky. This M guy really knows how to pick his underground bases. Are you sure Bond isn’t around, Senpai? ‘Cause this is giving me major Bond villain vibes.”

My cheek twitched. “Yes.”

Although at this point, not as sure as I wanted to be. If we ever did encounter James Bond, then Rika would never let me live it down.

“Scared?” Jeanne Alter teased.

“It’s a healthy fear. Healthy!” Rika insisted, and then she smiled. “But I’ve got a bunch of really strong people here with me, so if this is where we gotta go, then I guess this is where we go. At least it isn’t as spooky as that Clock Tower place.”

“Although I’m not sure you have to worry about something strange jumping out at you any less,” Emiya drawled.

Rika gasped, and even Mash looked worried.

“I…never read about anything like that, but,” she began, “is there really something strange down in the Underground?”

“Normally, no,” I said. I gave Emiya an unimpressed look. “But since we don’t know who M is or what his skillset is, we should keep our guards up, just in case he’s left a few nasty surprises around for us to stumble across.”

“As long as there are no alligators,” Rika said vehemently.

Ritsuka huffed a short laugh. “Isn’t that supposed to be New York?”

“You never know!”

“Mash,” I said, “Jeanne Alter, you go down first, then Mordred and Fran, then Ritsuka, you and Rika. Jackie and I will be after you, then Tohsaka and Alice, and Emiya and…Abraham will bring up the rear.”

No one had any objections to the order I’d chosen, so we took a minute to rearrange ourselves into it, and then Jeanne Alter and Mash entered the station and began their way down the stairs, weapons held at the ready. The rest of us followed, and in the quiet, the clack and clang of our footsteps and our equipment jostling echoed off of the walls.

The stairway started dark, but not long down it, gas lamps began appearing, but only about half of them were actually lit. The others, it seemed, were either damaged or simply out of whatever oil they burned.

Midway, Jackie reached out and tugged on my sleeve, whispering up at me, “Mommy, what’s an alligator?”

Ahead of me, Rika snorted and stifled her laughter behind her hands. I pretended not to hear her.

“A very big lizard,” I told Jackie, “with very sharp teeth and very strong jaws. They don’t live anywhere near here, though, so there won’t be any down where we’re going.”

“Oh,” said Jackie. “Okay.”

Contrary to Emiya’s teasing, nothing jumped out at us, and we made it to the bottom of the stairs without being accosted by any sort of enemy, not even one of the automata. I snuck some bugs down with us, marching them down in places where none of the others were looking, just to avoid creeping anyone out. It was a sparse swarm, but it would hopefully be enough to give me a better sense of my surroundings while we were out looking.

Waiting at the bottom was a railway platform, lit by more gas lamps. It stretched out to either side, lined with brickwork, and dropped steeply to the tracks that sat at the center. On the opposite side was another platform much the same as the one we found ourselves on, leading back up to the other side of the station. Naked steel beams ran across the ceiling, lined the entire way with large rivets and supported by more steel beams that formed pillars between the two sets of tracks. They were interspersed with thinner concrete pillars.

A pair of tunnels — or perhaps more accurately a single tunnel that ran through the platforms — stretched out in either direction, one easterly and heading towards Whitechapel and one westerly, bound for Westminster. The gas lamps lit the platforms well enough, but their light died not far into the tunnels, making it impossible to see what hid in the darkness beyond.

The air was more humid than I’d been expecting, carrying with it a damp chill that reminded of the fog, but I probably should have realized that it would be. The entrances to the Underground were not shut, had no doors to close, so there was nothing stopping the fog from descending down into it. And if the fog originated from somewhere down here? Then of course it would linger, just because there was no sun to cook it off.

At least it was too diminished to do anything. No friction on my magic circuits at all, so the magical energy in it was too thin to start eating away at my lungs again. It was just a wet chill in the air and nothing more. Small mercies.

“This is creepy,” Rika muttered.

“I’ve never seen a subway so empty,” Ritsuka agreed quietly. They came from Tokyo, so I didn’t imagine they’d ever seen one that had no people in it at all.

“It doesn’t look like the trains are running either,” Emiya noted. “Which I suppose makes sense, considering no one seems willing to leave their homes.”

“It means we won’t have to worry about trying to avoid them,” I said.

Not that I’d thought we would, but it was a nice thing to have it confirmed. No people in the station looking to go anywhere meant no trains we had to dodge.

“So?” said Mordred. “Which way?”

“Uhn,” Fran grunted.

I spared the easterly tunnel only a short glance and dismissed it just as quickly. There were no Ley Line Terminals in that direction, and more than that, the enemy’s presence in Whitechapel had been so sparse that I wasn’t willing to even think it was a ruse meant to draw our attention elsewhere in the city. For M to be that confident in himself that he would eschew a stronger defensive line didn’t line up with what we knew so far, sparse as that was.

That really only left one direction.

West it was.