Ametrine caught hold of Yarrow’s arm as the nymph tried to skirt around her.

“Oh, no, dear,” Ametrine said. “Where are you off to?”

Sorrel’s mother smiled. “It’s market day, don’t you know. I’d like some nice fish for a fry tonight.”

“I’d like that, too,” Ametrine said, guiding Yarrow back into a sitting position. “We have to stay here, I’m afraid.”

“It’s so dark,” the nymph said.

“Yes, dear, it is,” Ametrine said. She turned back to listen to the tunnel, dimly lit by petrified glowshrooms along the walls and ceiling.

In the hours since she’d split up with her children and her wife, she had coiled her afro into twists to protect her hair from the rough ceiling and narrow walls of the caves and tunnels beneath Mycoton. Her hunting bow was all but useless in the tight quarters, but she did have a knife in her possession as well. She felt both claustrophobic and exposed--buried beneath tons of rock and petrified mushrooms, but wearing only the sundress she’d had on at the market yesterday. Her sandals were dirty, and she shuffled a pebble out of one of them.

Worst of all, Opal had not rejoined them.

Ametrine took a steadying breath. She blinked back the tears threatening to undo her. She and Opal had been through worse situations when they were active with the rebellion. Insurmountable odds, dangerous foes, tense missions--they’d seen it all. But after almost thirty years living the bucolic life in Mycoton, Ametrine felt rusty, and she knew Opal must, too.

“Be safe, my love,” Ametrine whispered.

“What did you say?” Yarrow asked, loudly.

As Ametrine turned to hush her, a voice rang out from down the dim passageway.

“Who’s there?”

Adrenaline leapt into Ametrine’s throat, threatening to choke her. She lifted a hand to cover Yarrow’s mouth, but the oblivious nymph shouted,

“It’s Yarrow and Ametrine! Who are you?”

A small-statured figure hove into view, picking its way cautiously along the uneven ground.

“It’s me, it’s Paltran,” the figure said.

Ametrine got a better look as the person approached. It was a short elvish man, wearing an apron covered in flour. Paltran the baker, who worked out of the Mycoton Inn. She relaxed upon recognizing him, and he seemed to do the same.

Stolen novel; please report.

“There’s more of us,” Paltran said. He raised thin fingers to his lips and gave a shrill whistle.

More figures emerged from around a corner. Two young gnomish children and their father; another elf; and a few middle-aged humans.

“My sister Alia,” Paltran said, gesturing to the other elf. “Chef for the inn, and all the patrons from the dining room when the soldiers arrived.”

The gnome pulled his children up against him. Their little faces were stained with half-dried tears. “Dahlia and Topaz,” he said, referring to the owners of the Mycoton Inn. “Blocked off the front door. Paltran and Alia got us out through the kitchen.”

Paltran fidgeted with his powdery apron. “I don’t know what happened to Topaz and Dahlia. We just ran to the caves.”

“Them soldiers were everywhere,” one of the human women said. She crossed her arms over her chest, but Ametrine couldn’t tell in the scant light whether she seemed annoyed or insecure, and her gruff voice didn’t betray her emotions one way or the other. “Saw them dragging other folks straight out of their shroomhouses.”

“Did you see grandma?” one of the gnome children asked.

“Harpsichord Rammelmire?” the woman asked.

The child looked nervously at her father, who nodded. “That’s my mother-in-law.”

The human woman knelt in front of the child.

Jade! That was the woman’s name. Ametrine was sure of it.

“No, sweetiepie,” Jade said to the child. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see your grandma.”

The child burst into tears, causing her younger sister to also burst into tears. Jade jumped up and away as if stung by a waspion. She looked desperately at the gnome father, who waved her off and stooped to mollify his daughters.

“Oh, so sweet,” Yarrow said. She shuffled over to the children and picked up the younger one. “There there,” she said. The little girl’s sobs soon quieted to sniffles.

“I say we go back up there and fight. ,” said another human woman. “We can’t let them take our town like this!”

Ametrine straightened her posture. If she didn’t take control of the situation, someone else would, and she knew that nobody else here had been a general in the rebellion.

“You’ll go up there in just your britches with just your fists, will you?” Ametrine said. “We’re not a fighting force. No armor, hardly any weapons. And we have children here. We’d do better to find a safe place to hole up until we can find out more about what’s going on above.”

The scrappy woman rubbed the back of her head and shrugged, but spoke no protest.

Ametrine led the little group to a cavern she’d discovered many years ago. A pool of water in the center, fed by a seeping drip from above, served as the main focal point--and the main strategic advantage. The gnome girls ran to the edge to watch the all-white cave fish swimming about in the clear water. Paltran produced some bread loaves from his apron and his sister Alia revealed a wheel of cheese--their only supplies. Ametrine had her hunting bow, a handful of arrows, and her knife; all the humans had small knives with them, but Mrs. Rammelmire’s son-in-law and the cooks carried no weapons.

“I’m Oboe Bramblear,” the gnome said as Ametrine handed him a few slices of bread and cheese for his daughters.

“I’m Ametrine,” said Ametrine. She hesitated a moment, then cleared her throat. “That is, Ametrine Deyspring.”

The elvish chef Alia chuckled as she cut up her cheese wheel. “Very funny, ma’am. Like the old stories.”

“Stories?” asked Jade as she settled back against the wall of the cavern.

“Elvish stories,” Paltran said. “My sister and I were raised on them, as most elvish children are.”

Ametrine raised her head high and looked down at her fellow elves. These two were not much older than her own children. “They are stories that hold a truth,” she said.

“A philosophical truth?” Alia asked, smirking.

Paltran held up his hand to his sister and turned to Ametrine. “Wait, don’t you have twins? A boy and a girl?”

“I do,” Ametrine said.

“And they’re Deysprings,” Paltran said, but he wasn’t asking a question. His sister chuckled and went back to slicing the cheese wheel, but Paltran looked thoughtful.

The others introduced themselves. Ametrine had remembered Jade’s name correctly. The scrappy human woman was Peridot--Peri--and the two human men were Mackin and Willie, young lovers who went to dinner for their first anniversary. The little gnome girls were Viola and Flute.

Ametrine strapped her quiver to her side and hefted her hunting bow. “Well then,” she said. “Who’s coming with me?”

Jade looked up from her cheese and bread. “You said we don’t have enough weapons to take back Mycoton.”

“We don’t,” Ametrine said. “But I do not believe that we can be the only people who escaped into the tunnels. We can find more of them and lead them back here.”

Jade handed her food off to little Viola and stood. “I’ll come.”

Willie and Peri also volunteered.

The four of them set off into the tunnels.