Kori had walked the Underworks a thousand times. She knew it the way you know a scar - by the shape of the damage. Pipes and vents tangled overhead, dripping in the dark. Scrap bridges bolted level to level. Chains drooping from a ceiling no one had ever seen, holding lamps that buzzed, failed and got replaced with whatever was cheaper. Stalls patched together from cloth and bent armor. Barefoot kids with their hands out. Hard men against the walls with bottles. Stone, rust, oil, and the people the city had decided not to keep.
That was the Underworks she'd descended into for two decades.
…It was not the one in front of her now.
She stood on the bottom step and didn't move for a long moment, because the part of her brain that mapped places had gone quiet and was refusing to update.
