We left the cistern in the last hour before true dawn.
The air in the tunnel had grown stale and heavy, thick with the weight of too many hours spent underground. The witch dulled the brand one final time, her fingers hovering over the wrapped cloth, her lips moving in a low murmur. The heat under the cloth wrapping faded to a low, manageable throb, a dull ache instead of a burning pulse. Sera led us through a route that was more crawlspace than tunnel, a forgotten drainage channel that emptied behind a row of burned-out stalls near the edge of the main market. The passage was narrow, the ceiling so low we had to crawl on our hands and knees. The ground was wet, slick with decades of grime.
The air above ground smelled of ash, frying oil, and too many bodies living too close together. It
