The cold in the subterranean levels didn't just sit on the skin; it lived in the marrow. It was a dry, preserved cold, the kind that smelled of ancient stone and the metallic tang of salt. Down here, the passage of time wasn't marked by the sun or the shifting shadows of the pines on the mountainside. It was marked by the slow depletion of grain sacks and the rhythmic scratch of my pen against the inventory ledger.
I liked the silence. Or, I had told myself I liked it. For three days, the deep pantry had been my fortress. My interaction with the upper world was limited to the brief, clinical delivery of reports to the administrative wing-a world of polished brass and hushed voices that felt increasingly like a stage play I wasn't meant to see.
I was currently working in the North Cellar,
