But Nina dusted her hands together, then looked to Patrick. “Time’s wasting,” she said lightly. “Shall we?”
They waited for Gunner, Briggs, and Theo to arrive. It seemed all three were suffering last night’s choices. Gunner and Briggs cursed and swigged black coffee from tin mugs. Theo’s eyes were dark-rimmed and slitted. He looked at no one.
“Let’s get this over with,” Gunner growled, yawning widely, and down they all went.
The tunnel was, finally, clear of water. Whatever Theo had done to curb the seeping had held overnight. The floor was malleable but not sodden. The walls felt dry underhand. Patrick stayed with Nina at the corpus, shoveling loads of waste into mine carts as she carved.
He tried not to distract her while she worked, but it was a trial. Distraction was normally a req
