The undercity didn't welcome people.
It tolerated them.
Nyra learned that within the first ten steps. The air grew heavier the farther they walked, thick with mineral dust and old smoke. Crystal veins threaded the walls like scars, their light uneven—patched together from whatever fragments people could salvage.
The boy walked ahead of her without rushing, hands in his pockets like this was an ordinary afternoon stroll. That alone made her uneasy.
"You always pick stairwells for dramatic meetings?" Nyra asked.
"They're quiet," he said. "And people forget what they hear while climbing."
She didn't like how casually he said it.
They passed a closed door etched with warning sigils, then another sealed with melted crystal. Nyra noticed the way he slowed near certain corners, how his footsteps softened instinctively.
"You live down here," she said.
He shrugged. "Sometimes."
Not an answer.
They reached a narrow bridge spanning a drop she couldn't see the bottom of. Faint light pulsed far below, like the city had a second, hidden heartbeat. Nyra hesitated.
The boy glanced back. "Still with me?"
"Do I have another option?"
"Everyone does," he said. "They just don't always like the cost."
She crossed anyway.
On the other side, voices drifted from somewhere unseen—low, careful, unfinished conversations. Nyra felt eyes on her, though she couldn't see anyone. The undercity didn't stare openly. It remembered.
The boy stopped near a wall where crystal had been scraped away entirely, leaving bare stone.
"You can rest here," he said. "For now."
"For how long?"
He considered that. "Long enough for the city to calm down. Or long enough for it to get worse."
Nyra exhaled slowly.
"Do you turn in people like me?" she asked.
He didn't answer right away.
Instead, he reached up and adjusted his mask—just slightly—revealing a thin scar beneath his eye.
"No," he said finally. "But I watch what they become."
That was somehow worse.
He turned to leave.
"Wait," Nyra said. "You still haven't told me your name."
He paused at the edge of the dim light.
"Neither have you."
Then he was gone, swallowed by shadow and crystal glow, leaving Nyra alone with the echo of her own breathing and the uncomfortable certainty that the city hadn't lost her trail—
It had simply let someone else find her first.
Nyra didn't sit at first.
The stone wall was colder than it looked, and the quiet felt intentional—like the space was waiting to see what she would do with it. She stood there, listening to the undercity breathe. Drips of water echoed from somewhere far below. Crystal light flickered unevenly, never settling.
She reached into her satchel and pulled out the mask.
The crack caught the light immediately.
It hadn't spread. That almost bothered her more.
Nyra turned it slowly in her hands, tracing the fracture with her thumb. The Aetherglass felt different now—quieter, but not dead. As if it were listening instead of humming. She wondered what would happen if she put it back on.
She didn't.
Instead, she wrapped it in cloth and tucked it carefully away, like something that might wake if disturbed.
Voices drifted closer—two of them this time. Nyra stiffened, stepping back into the shadow of the bare stone. The undercity didn't announce visitors. It simply produced them.
A girl emerged from the dim passage to the left, carrying a crate balanced easily on her shoulder. She was short, wiry, her mask tinted green and chipped along the edges. Not regulation. Her sleeves were rolled up, revealing hands stained faintly with crystal dust.
Behind her came an older man, breathing heavily.
"I told you," the girl said, not turning around, "if you overload the fragment, it fractures. That's not a flaw. That's physics."
"I just needed it brighter," the man argued.
"Then you needed a different crystal."
They passed close enough that Nyra caught the girl's glance—quick, assessing, sharp. Her eyes flicked to Nyra's uncovered face, then to the satchel.
She didn't stop.
But she didn't look surprised either.
Nyra let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
So they've seen worse, she thought. Or they've learned not to ask.
She slid down the wall and finally sat, knees drawn up. Her legs were starting to shake now that the running was over. Adrenaline always left her like this—hollowed out and buzzing.
Time passed strangely in the undercity. No bells. No clear markers. Just movement and pause, like the city was thinking between thoughts.
Eventually, footsteps returned.
Not the boy's.
These were lighter. Careful.
Nyra looked up as the green-masked girl reappeared, this time without the crate. She stopped a few paces away and leaned against the opposite wall, arms crossed.
"You're not from down here," she said.
Nyra considered lying.
Something in the girl's posture—loose but ready—made her decide against it.
"No."
"Masks usually stay on up top," the girl continued. "Down here, people take them off when they don't want trouble. You did the opposite."
Nyra swallowed. "I didn't have a choice."
The girl hummed softly, like she was filing that away. "Name?"
"Nyra."
A pause. Then, "I'm Ilen."
Not nice to meet you. Not don't cause problems. Just a name, offered like a test.
Ilen's gaze drifted to the satchel again. "You cracked Aetherglass."
Nyra's fingers tightened reflexively.
"You shouldn't say things like that out loud," Nyra said.
"I shouldn't," Ilen agreed. "But I don't say untrue things."
Silence settled between them—not awkward, exactly. Observant.
"Crown's going to seal the upper passages tonight," Ilen said after a moment. "They always do when something goes wrong in the Rings. That stairwell you came down? It won't stay open."
Nyra's chest tightened. "Then I need to move."
"Maybe." Ilen tilted her head. "Or maybe you need somewhere they don't bother checking."
Nyra studied her. "Why help me?"
Ilen shrugged. "Curiosity. Also, you looked like you were about to bolt through a crystal fault and get yourself killed."
"That's comforting."
"I try."
She pushed off the wall. "Come on. There's a place further in—old conduit chamber.
Crystals don't behave right there. Guild scanners hate it."
Nyra hesitated.
Ilen noticed. "You don't have to trust me," she said. "Just trust that the Crown hates unpredictability more than fugitives."
That sounded… right.
Nyra stood, slinging the satchel over her shoulder. "If this is a trap—"
"It's not," Ilen said. "I don't sell people. Too messy."
They walked.
The passages narrowed, walls closing in, crystal light dimming until most of it came from scattered fragments set into the floor. Nyra felt something shift as they went deeper—not pressure this time, but awareness. Like the city was thinning, its attention stretched too far above to notice what moved beneath it.
"You know the boy who brought me here," Nyra said quietly.
Ilen snorted. "Everyone knows him."
"That doesn't answer my question."
"He knows things," Ilen said after a moment. "And forgets things. Sometimes on purpose."
Nyra frowned. "That makes no sense."
"Get used to that."
They stopped before a heavy door half-fused shut with old crystal growth. Ilen pressed her palm against it, murmured something under her breath, and the crystal dulled, releasing the seal with a low groan.
Beyond it, the chamber opened wide and dark, lit only by a few stubborn crystal veins pulsing weakly in the walls.
"This is safe?" Nyra asked.
Ilen smiled faintly. "Safe enough to hide."
Nyra stepped inside.
Behind her, somewhere far above, the city continued ringing and watching and categorizing its people into neat, obedient lines.
Down here, the rules blurred.
And Nyra had the unsettling feeling that for the first time in her life, that might be more dangerous than any mask.