Alright, so I get why he said that.

You can’t just yank it out, can you? You have to turn it off first.

it was for my benefit, not Bauman’s. But where’s the fucking off switch? Couldn’t he have said that too?

‘Okay,’ I say. My fingers tremble, poised above his ear as I summon the courage to touch the little golden thing. ‘Okay, Okay…’

But it’s not okay. It’s nowhere near okay - he’s crying blood. There’s fucking blood streaming down from his eyes, and his ears, and his nose. Every three seconds or so his whole body jerks.

…Because he’s still being tortured. Because that wasp-shaped thing in his ear is destroying his brain. And I don’t particularly want to touch it if I don’t know what I’m doing!

‘Klaus,’ I hiss; no way in hell I’m raising my voice. ‘Where’s the off switch? How do I turn it off?’

His face is utterly blank. He’s out cold.

Okay. First things first - I need light. I can’t see anything like this.

I grab the sheet off the nearest piece of furniture and hobble to the door. With a grunt of pain I crouch down and shove it under the crack at the bottom. Then I straighten up - fucking ow - and turn on the light. For a few seconds it sears into my retinas and I’m blinded. I stumble back to Klaus, clutching my ribs, take a deep, centring breath, and grab his head.

His white eyelashes flutter, brow creased in pain. His throat keeps clicking - I think he might be bringing up blood. But there’s no time for that.

The wasp - the biomech - is curved, with the rounded end sticking out of his ear canal. There’s some stuff engraved into the top, but it’s way too tiny for a human eye. You’d need a magnifying glass to read it. There’s no button that I can see. Not like the supports, where all I had to do was pull down the lever. If there’s a button here, it’s not shaped like a normal one.

I clench every muscle in my body in preparation for pain. Then I stick my finger inside and touch the metal.

Nothing happens.

I sag, letting out a breath of relief. Of course though. If it does have an off switch, someone must be able to use it without getting mind-breaking pain themselves. I need to think more rationally. Bauman said this was used for gunners who were hard of hearing. If that’s what he modified it from, then it’s probably supposed to be ‘on’ for long periods of time. The biomech is relatively large - it fills up his ear, which means there’s a large surface area exposed. So the off switch can’t be something that could be easily activated by accident.

Warm liquid splatters over my neck and I jerk back as Klaus begins to choke.

I don’t have time to puzzle this out. He’s going to die from the pain if I don’t do something. In the midst of my swelling panic, I suddenly remember Finn’s prosthetic. Finn’s the same - he uses his hand all day, so he modded it to come on and off with a double-tap to a specific panel on his wrist. I remember him talking about how it was a simple gesture that was difficult to achieve accidentally. Almost as soon the thought flies through my mind, I reach in and double-tap the end of the wasp.

Klaus continues to choke. Shit, I think despondently. Sweat crawls down my neck. I try to come to terms with ripping it out of his ear and hoping for the best.

Then his mouth flies open - eyes open - and he coughs.

I don’t turn away in time. Blood flecks my hair, a sharp and coppery scent, strong enough to make me gag. I slap my palm over my mouth and stagger back as Klaus sucks in breath after breath.

‘G-Get it out,’ he raps. His voice sounds painful. He’s staring past my shoulder with wild, white eyes, as though he can’t see me. I reach forward and yank out the biomech. There’s barely any resistance as it leaves his ear.

It looks evil in my palm. A golden wasp made from tiny metal panels, the body tapering to a wicked, needle-like point, now stained red and shiny. A wave of revulsion rocks through me, and suddenly I don’t want to touch it. I draw up my shirt, shove my hand into the pouch around my waist, and grab one of the bundles of cloth I stuffed in there to stop it all from making noise. I wrap the wasp up quickly and shove it back in with the rest of the objects, buttoning the whole thing up.

When I look up again, Klaus is sagged back against the wall with his eyes closed. His body is held up entirely by the chains: he’s passed out. I study him, trying to calm my breathing. I’ve been in this room for twenty minutes, and in that time he’s aged ten years. His skin looks like wet paper. Tearable. There are half-dried trails of blood dripping down his cheeks, his jaw, his neck, and his brow is furrowed with pain, even unconscious.

He didn’t tell them about me. And he - kind of - gave me the biomech.

I look at the door, hesitating. Fuck it, I think, and go back into the pouch.

I’m not sure if Finn’s mechanical key will work on manacles - I can’t say I’ve ever tried it on anything that wasn’t a cupboard or a door. But I don’t like owing anyone anything. I’ll at least try.

I have to go up on my tiptoes to reach his hands, which puts us in alarming proximity. His breath wheezes faintly next to my ear as I insert the serrated end of the key and twist the three rings of the main body, listening intently. He smells like old sweat, and blood, and faintly of engine oil, like Finn does when he comes back from the shop. It takes a full minute, but eventually a click rings out and I can turn the key. The iron shackles abruptly unhinge, like a jaw releasing a bite. Unfortunately, this also means that Klaus is no longer held up.

‘Wait,’ I say stupidly as he falls on to me, his head slamming into my collarbone. He’s thin, but tall, and he weighs more than me. I wobble on my feet, gritting my teeth as I try to slow his descent. ‘Oi,’ I say as I stagger to a crouch. ‘Wake up.’

But of course he doesn’t.

He falls the last metre or so, because I’m tired, and ends up landing in an elegant sprawl on the floor, like a sack of potatoes. I get to my feet, panting, and stare down at him. I wonder who he is. If he really made something that can detect magic. If magic really exists. I sort of thought it was a metaphor, actually, something to make Top’s rise to power more interesting.

What a weird guy.

Now that he’s freed and my debt paid, I head back to the desk I was crouched behind, briefly scouting for anything I might have dropped. I’m paranoid there’s something that will give me away as Addie from Under - because they’ll put two and two together and figure out it was me. Just as long as they think I’m Jack G.

I turn to go and pause. I’m not quite sure why, only a part of me is insisting there’s something here I’m missing. Klaus was staring over here so intently… Even when he woke up, even when I was nowhere near the desk.

Why?

I flip the sheet up and stare at it. It’s just a desk. A writing desk: an elegant, feminine thing, made from a rich red mahogany.

Sometimes I get these instincts about things. Finn likes to laugh at me, but it’s why I’ve survived thieving so long. Sometimes your mind puts things together without you noticing - sometimes a shop will give me a bad feeling, and then, seconds later, I’ll see Peacers walk out of it, or a random street will look interesting, and I’ll wander down it and find an alleyway or a shortcut I’ve never noticed before. Instincts. They’re real.

And this is just a desk. I trace my fingertips over the surface, perfectly smooth, and then notice the little drawers underneath. I pull one open, frowning when there’s nothing in there. Then I open the second, not really expecting anything. Something catches my eye, in the shadows at the back. At first glance I think it’s a coin, then, as I lean closer, I realise it’s a ring. An ugly ring, no doubt, big and bulky and made of a horrible tarnished metal.

A smirk spreads across my face. I knew he wasn’t staring over here for no reason. I knew it. I take out another roll of fabric from my pouch and use it to pick the thing up with - I’m not taking chances - and bring it up to my eyes. Maybe this is the thing he made that Bauman wants? In which case I should probably leave it where it is…

I wrap it up and stuff it in my pocket. There’s no way I’m leaving a bargaining chip like this. If Bauman wants it so badly, I’m sure he’d be willing to pay a lot of money to get it back.

A groan comes from behind, and I look back to see Klaus curling into a ball on his side. He’s waking up, I bet, which means I need to go. Some of my excitement dims. I’ve spent too long here, and now that I’ve freed a prisoner and stolen an important ring, I don’t know if my bathroom excuse is going to cut it.

I tug the sheet back down over the desk and jog to the door. I don’t look at Klaus - he’s not my problem. I gave him his hands back, the rest is up to him. I flick off the lights, replace the sheet, and then spend a few seconds listening at the door in the darkness.

It’s quiet. I slip out.

‘Well?’ Thompson says when he enters the sick room. His wrinkled brow is furrowed, his tone clipped. ‘What’s the emergency?’

I’m sitting on the bed, my hair still damp from the impromptu wash. ‘I’m feeling better,’ I say brightly. ‘I think I can go back.’

Thompson stares at me as if I’ve grown another head. Slowly, his gaze travels from my wet hair, over my shoulders, to my ribs and legs. ‘You’re feeling better,’ he repeats.

‘I threw up,’ I tell him, and jerk my thumb to the sink. ‘I think that helped.’

His face gets a pinched look to it that I rather enjoy, and he peers at the sink.

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‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘I cleaned it up. I know you’re busy.’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I am busy. And I do not have time to ferry you around. You will remain in here until four, when you are due to be picked up. Do not bother me again.’

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘What’s the time now then?’

He glances at his watch, jaw tight. ‘It is ten past two.’ He turns and slams the door behind him as he leaves, like a child and not a man approaching seventy.

As soon as he’s out of sight, I go back to grimacing and clutching my rib. Very gently, I ease back on the bed.

I lied. I don’t feel better, I feel much worse. Sweaty, and shaky, although maybe that’s the nerves. I wanted to go back to the Patchers, to at least get out of the house. But it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen. Which means that if at any point in the next two hours Bauman goes to check on Klaus, I’m fucked. They’ll know it’s me, and I’ll be sitting here, waiting, unable to even run.

By the time Thompson comes to get me, I’m a wreck. It’s funny - I thought I was good at being stressed, at running around Mid and stealing things and getting shot at. But I’ve realised it’s only because when you’re moving, you don’t realise. Sitting in a small white room, alone, listening to the ceiling creak above, the anxiety festers. There’s nowhere for it to go, no outlet except the drumming of fingers or the tap of a foot. My brain spirals into daydreams: what if Klaus was found and told them about me? What if Klaus is dead - what if I didn’t turn it off after all, and now he’s a a slowly draining corpse on the floor? What if that little ring in my pocket is somehow trackable? What if Bauman knows exactly what’s happened and is on his way to tear the wasp out of my pouch and stick it in my ear until there’s nothing left of my mind?

The door opens and I scream.

Thompson gives me an incredibly unimpressed look. It’s obvious from the way he doesn’t even say anything that he regrets offering to house me here for the afternoon. I don’t care. I get up to my feet, and follow him out of the room, heart thumping in my ribs.

We go back down the corridor, turn down the next, and through the door into the back of the manor.

The world opens up again as soon as I step out of the house. The sky above is a pale, lazy blue, the trees wave in the breeze, and just ahead, the bottle-green automobile judders and vibrates, still with the engine running. The sweaty, tired faces of the Patchers stare out of the windows at me.

Thompson maintains his silence, turns, and walks back into the house.

‘Jack G! Hurry up!’ the female Peacer barks.

One of the doors pops open. ‘Thanks,’ I call to Thompson as he lets himself back into the house, and hobble over to the automobile. No sooner have I awkwardly manoeuvred myself inside then we’re off, the engine jerking to life as I settle myself in a seat. I have to bit my lip to stop the gasp of pain escaping as I’m pressed against one of the Patchers and he elbows me away, right in the ribs.

The journey back is silent and sickly. I should be pleased - I’m so, so close to home now, and I have a piece of biomech safely stored in my pouch. But instead my head spins and my stomach clenches. I wonder if I’m having an anxiety attack, or if it’s actually just that I’ve overdone it physically, what with the stress and the lifting rubble and the near-death experience. It could be either.

Finally we turn down a familiar street and reach the empty, clean grey block of the shuttle station.

I’m the first one out of the automobile, hand on my side, taking in deep lungfuls of the sweet, clean air as the others stretch and mumble to each other. The male Peacer goes ahead to do something with the shuttle as the female Peacer herds us all into the station.

‘Addie,’ a voice pipes up from behind. I turn, surprised to see Jan. He’s been avoiding me the whole day. ‘Did you,’ he says, and swallows. ‘Did you get it?’

I look around. There are too many people and it’s too quiet. ‘Not here, Jan,’ I say, too tired to fuck with him. ‘I’ll tell you when we’re back.’

He nods, but his eyes grow wide. I’ve already given it away; I’d only have something to tell him if it worked.

I keep to myself during the shuttle journey, staring out of the window as we descend through the darkening sky. The roofs beneath turn gradually from neat, red tiles and golden spires, to long-eroded stone and corrugated iron and crumbled balconies.

Back in Under’s shuttle station, the air smells like metal. I notice, not for the first time, the slight wheeze in my chest.

I’m made to sign my name on the Peacer’s clipboard, informed to come back at eight tomorrow, and then they’re unlocking the gate in the barbed wire and sending us all on our way. Both the Peacers are eyeing the sky nervously. They don’t want to be caught down here when the sun sets. I stumble out after the others, who are finally noisy and boisterous, smoking and laughing as they walk back into home territory. They’re heading to the pub. A few of them try to talk to me, to ask how I am, but I give them some quick spiel about having a headache and tell them I’m going home. I don’t know why I’m feeling so cold and hollow all of a sudden, but I am. It’s probably the pain.

‘Are you going to the Boat?’ Jan asks. I almost startle; he creeps along so quietly that I didn’t even notice him there.

I think about it. Am I going to The Boat? Really, I should go back to the Den. Finn and Tom will be along later, and I don’t want to tempt fate by walking around with two mysterious items from Top on my person.

But when I think about Finn’s reaction, my excitement crawls sluggishly back to life. He’s not going to believe it - neither is Tom. Neither do I, to be frank. I’ve always been pretty lucky, but what happened today was unreal. I have to keep pressing my palm into the pouch and feeling those little lumps of bundled up fabric just to convince myself I didn’t hit my head and make it all up.

If Finn can deconstruct the wasp and figure out how to rebuild it, it’s going to change his life.

‘Yeah,’ I decide there and then. I can’t wait another few hours, I want to show him now. ‘Yeah, I am. You coming?’

Jan shakes his head. ‘You’re not coming here tomorrow, are you?’

‘Christ, no,’ I tell him, amused. ‘Don’t worry, that’s it from me. No more trips into Top.’ I give him a friendly punch on the shoulder, only he looks scared. ‘Well, thanks,’ I say, trying to soften it. ‘Don’t be a stranger, alright? I’ll buy you a drink next time you’re in the Boat.’

‘Okay.’ Jan gives me the most awkward smile I’ve ever seen, and scurries away.

For the first few seconds, Finn doesn’t say anything.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Tom says, his jaw on the floor, but I ignore him. I watch Finn’s pale, blank face instead, the dark fix of his eyes on the wasp. I wet my lips. ‘Finn?’

Nothing. Nothing, until he raises his head and pins me with a glare. I don’t recognise the look on his face, or I do, but it’s not what I thought it would be. He’s angry.

‘Finn, come on,‘ I say, a little sharply myself, because I nearly died for this and my rib is probably broken—

‘That’s why you’re limping? You went to Top?’

My stomach shrivels. I hate it when he’s angry with me. Then it has the opposite effect and I overcompensate, my voice raising. ‘Are you just going to ignore what that is? What it means? How I did it doesn’t matter, the end result is that I’m here. I’m safe, and you can use that to—‘

Finn’s chair screeches across the floor as he gets up from the table, mouth a terse white line, and walks over to the bar.

I stare after him, incredulous. ‘Does he realise?’ I turn to Tom. ‘Does he understand what this is? It’s gonna fix his hand! He could open up his own shop!’

‘If he can reverse engineer it,’ Tom points out, still staring down at the wasp in fascination.

‘Of course he can,’ I snap. I use the scrap of cloth to pick it up again and tuck it away in the pouch. No sense in having a shiny thing like that out on the table for all to see. ‘I don’t understand him.’

‘He’s upset that you put yourself in danger for him.’

‘No, I get that,’ I say, slumping into my chair. ‘But I got back safely. Nothing went wrong - he’s upset over nothing.’

Tom claps a hand on my shoulder. ‘He’ll come around.’ He pauses, and then laughs, incredulously. ‘I can’t really believe you did it though. I truly thought you’d have a day with the Patchers and then come back down. How on god’s green earth did you get into Bauman’s house? And how did you find it?’

I blink. Then look around. It’s quiet tonight. The Patchers, thankfully, have chosen another pub, Thesp is nowhere to be seen, and Big Jay is now chatting quietly with Finn at the bar.. I lean in and lower my voice. ‘The crack in the wall was pretty big. I took out one of the supports holding it up, thinking I could use it as a distraction and sneak away, but the rocks came down quicker than I thought. I almost got caught under it all and ended up fucking my ribs up.’ Some of my exhilaration returns and I can’t help but grin. ‘So they took me to the house so I could lie down on a bed.’

‘Your luck,’ Tom says, eyebrows all the way up his forehead, ‘is ridiculous.’

I snort. ‘Not that lucky. If someone hadn’t dragged me out, I would have been flattened.’

‘That’s exactly why you’re lucky.’ Tom’s eyes dart briefly to Finn.

‘Of course I’m not going to tell him that,’ I say.

‘I won’t say anything,’ Tom says, holding up his hands. ‘So you got into the house. But where did you find the biomech?’

I debate telling him only briefly; for some reason, a part of me doesn’t want to use Klaus’s torture as a funny story.

The larger part does. ‘This,’ I say, ‘is what you’re not going to believe. I snuck out the sick room, thought I’d just wander around and see if I could find something. I was walking down the corridor, freaking out, and I heard a noise, so I went in to to look—‘ Tom looks half-impressed, half-disbelieving. ‘—and I found a guy chained to the wall.’

Now it’s fully disbelieving. ‘Someone chained to the wall? In Bauman’s house?’

‘And he was in a really bad way. They’d beaten him up, he was covered in blood. So I went over to him and asked him if he knew where I could find any biomech.’

Tom’s face is really doing wonders for my ego.

‘And he basically told me to fuck off. Then Bauman comes in and I just about manage to hide, and he starts asking Klaus about something—’

‘Klaus?’ Tom interrupts.

I pause. ‘Yeah, the guy was called Klaus. But anyway, Bauman puts the wasp in his ear and starts torturing him. And then he goes away to have a meeting and leaves the poor guy passed out about with his mind getting jellified, and I have to figure out how to turn it off - which by the way was incredibly stressful because all the guy had said was—’

Tom grabs my shoulder, hard. ‘Was he pale and blonde? This Klaus?’

I blink at him. Then nod, slowly.

Tom lets go of me. He doesn’t seem to realise he was all but mangling my collarbone. ‘Bauman took Klaus,’ he says, staring at the table.

Something’s not right. ‘Do you know him?’ I ask, feeling awkward. It’s not out of the realms of possibility. Mid and Top do interact, after all.

Tom looks up at me, dark eyes flashing with excitement. ‘If it’s the Klaus I’m thinking of, he’s famous. He’s the youngest researcher to ever head up a discipline at the University.’

I don’t even know what a discipline is. ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘He said he was a scientist.’

Tom nods and then seems to come back to himself. ‘Sorry,’ he says quickly. ‘I just didn’t expect to hear that name. It threw me off. And it’s been a stressful day. I was worried about you, you know? I kept thinking about what I was going to do if something happened to you.’

I soften. I want to rub at my collarbone but I pick up my drink instead. ‘Well, I’m fine. If you could help me convince Finn that, that would be great.’

It’s petty, probably, but I decide not to tell him about the ring.

Finn’s softened up by the time we leave the pub. My arm is slung around his shoulder, and he’s all but carrying me down the street; because he knows about my little crush and likes to fuck with me, he grabbed me just as Tom was about to offer his arm.

‘Ouch,’ I say with every jostle. ‘Fucking ouch.’

‘If you don’t want to get injured, don’t attempt to collapse a wall,’ Finn says, merciless. ‘Your ribs might be broken, you know that? You should have gone back and wrapped them up instead of coming to the pub.’ He sighs. ‘Let’s see if Thesp will take a look tomorrow.’

‘God no,’ I say, horrified. ‘I don’t want him prodding at me.’

‘You’re impossible,’ Finn mutters as we round the corner into the next alleyway. It’s a full moon, so we’ve at least got enough light to see by. Everything is silver and black: the crumbled stone steps, the bulging walls of the old buildings, the impenetrable black shadows. It smells like dust and metal, the smell of home stronger and more noticeable after a day of clean air.

‘Keep your voices down,’ Tom calls from up ahead.

Finn and I trade a look of amusement. For all he likes to call himself an Under citizen now, Tom still gets worried about Katerakts breaking through the wall. For the first month, he’d always leave the pub before sunset, jogging back to the Den and climbing up to the top floor. It took him ages to calm down. We had to explain again and again that a) Under’s wall only breaks around once a fortnight and b) the chances of it being in our neighbourhood are slim to none. There’s no point missing out on the pub for that.

We walk in silence for a minute or so, the only sound the strange, limping echo of our footsteps. Then Tom, a few metres in front, stops suddenly and says, ‘Jesus!’

My brow furrows. ‘What?’ I ask, right as Tom is yanked into another alleyway, out of sight.

For a moment I stare, uncomprehending. I wait for him to come back, my fingers clenched tight on Finn’s shoulder. Then an icy chill pours through me. Katerakts, I think, disbelieving.

‘Run,’ Finn chokes out, and suddenly I hear Tom shouting and the sound of a scuffle.

Finn is ripped away, and I turn, forgetting about my ribs, to see figures surrounding us, tall and dark with fabric wrapped around their lower faces.

Not Katerakts. People.