I let the tiny girl pull me into the alleyway, and the noise of Bruis slowly disappears behind me.
The crowd thins, and below my feet, there's light smoke.
She's barefoot and walking over shattered glass, but doesn't flinch. She doesn't even notice. Her hands are cold.
"Down here," she says, pointing to a drainage grate pried open beneath an overhang. The walls are painted with mildew and long-dead ivy.
The entrance yawns wide. A stone stairwell spirals into the earth, devouring the light.
I shouldn't go in. I have to seek Cole. My flames whisper it to me, but the girl looks back with all bright eyes and an eager grin. Her hair is dark and long, filled with dirt. Those eyes... why do I know those eyes?
She tugs me gently, one hand holding mine—the other pointing toward the broken grate that leads downwards. "Down here," she repeats softly. Her words float through the air like incense, like smoke drifting toward flame.
I stare at the entrance intently. The girl lets go of my hand, already entering. She glances at me once more. "Come on, my mother is down here." Then she disappears into the darkness of the grate.
I take one step forward, and the air grows cold and still. My hand still feels the girl's warmth. The tiny fingers are cold like polished marble, as if something fabricated. A weight presses against my chest, something deep and coiling—a drowning pressure.
What is a catacomb doing in the middle of an alley?
I descend, following the girl's footsteps.
Each footfall lands with a hush, as if the stone itself is swallowing sound. The narrow stairwell coils like the spine of some ancient beast. Each step wraps tighter around me.
The world goes quiet. A silence that clings to the inside of my lungs. It has weight, a hush that presses on the bones. Something that doesn't belong in this plane.
The light fades faster than it should.
At some point, I stopped seeing the stairs and kept walking down and down. My boots thud into something softer than stone. The walls pulse with moisture. The narrow path ripples just enough to make me think it shifted, but when I blink, it's the same.
Still, I keep walking, following.
The girl never looks back again, but her presence coils around me. Her figure is pale and fragile, yet the air around her shimmers like oil slicked across the surface of water. It lures my gaze and doesn't let go.
I blink.
She's further ahead now, the corridor bending around her like water pulled into a whirlpool. The walls melt behind, no longer brick, mortar, or tombstone. They pulse now, all breathless and damp. They exhale something sour.
But I don't stop walking.
I can't.
Her presence anchors me.
Why am I still following?
I should've left, turned around the moment her feet touched that stair.
I need to find Cole. We need to leave Bruis.
That Inquisitor can't know about him.
Yet...
Every time I try to look away, my hand stings. Her presence coils tighter around me—an Aura. Thick, soft, humming like distant strings pulls tight. It wraps around my senses, snaring something more profound than thought. Some emotion in the dark abyss of my soul. An emotion that's more than memory, a familiarity.
Her gait, her quiet hum, the way her hair sways just enough to catch the nonexistent wind.
I've seen this girl before.
No.
I've seen someone who moved like her, who smiled like her.
But it's impossible.
She turns her head slightly, and for a fraction of a second, my step falters.
Those eyes.
Eyes I haven't seen in centuries.
Where am I?
My breath turns shallow. The corridor pulls inward. Each step feels more like falling than walking, and my boots no longer strike stone.
It's softer now. Damp. Spongy. Wet.
The walls sweat.
Pale strands of sinew stretch along the curves, quivering with breath.
This is no catacomb. I'm walking inside something living.
The hallway flexes with each breath, rippling under a thick membrane of pulsing red and violet flesh. My boots sink into the floor.
The air is moist and foul, heavy with the sour smell of iron and something sickeningly sweet. The two conflicting auras clash, revealing more of where I am.
I touch the wall. It twitches. The flesh recoils beneath my palm, shuddering like muscles, straining against unseen tension. My fingers come away wet. I clench my hand as flames curl around it.
The fire around my fist pulses like a heartbeat. It licks up my wrist, rising upward. The walls twitch when my flames touch them. It recoils as though in pain.
I see her again, the girl. Just ahead. Her shape sways like a candle in deep water. She's waiting now, framed by a break in the corridor, standing in an open, exhaling, breathing chamber.
Her smile hasn't changed.
She looks at me. "Please, mister," she says again. "Don't use that. Not in front of my mother. She's scared of fire."
My fingers freeze. The flames flutter, then steadies.
Behind her, I hear a wet and weak gasp. A cough. Then, another. Then a wheeze, sharp as bone grinding bone.
A figure hugging the wall in the fetal position, clutching the slick membrane like it's still stone.
She's gaunt. Barefoot. Her white dress is soaked at the hem, stained with fluid that's neither water nor blood. Her back is toward me, her shoulders are trembling, and her hands press against her face. Long black hair clings to her neck in damp strands.
"Amira," the woman chokes, calling the girl.
"Mama," the girl says. She strolls forward toward the women. "I'm here, Mama. I brought someone to help us."
My breath catches—something cold snakes down my spine.
That name.
That voice.
That shape.
No.
The woman in white turns slowly, her fingers peel away from her face.
And that face looks back at me.
Tears stream down the woman's cheeks. She clenches the membrane, pulling herself up, still sobbing.
The sobs turn to giggling. "Thank you, Amira," the woman says. "You've done such a good job, like always."
The woman stands before Amira, holding her hand like a porcelain doll. The woman puts another hand on Amira's cheek, squeezing them tightly.
"Thank you, Mama! Please tell me, am I a good girl?"
The woman smiles inhumanely. Her mouth sat in a perpetual, cruel crescent—an ear-to-ear pale smile. She beams down at her daughter with eyes too broad, too wide. Her mouth splits so far across her face that her lips quiver, torn and glistening pink, tugged open at the corners by something more muscle than joy.
"Yes, Amira, you're such a good girl."
Amira squeals in joy. "Thank you, Mama! Thank you so much!"
The woman nods.
Her nod is the last kindness in the room.
The smile doesn't change as her hands change: pale, bone-thin, jointed wrong like extra knuckles had folded into each finger. They rise in a slow, devotional arc. The chamber exhales around us, membranes concaving as if to watch.
"Hold still, sweetheart," she coos. Amira does.
Those long-boned hands cup her daughter's head tenderly as if setting a crown. Thumb to temple. Palm to nape. I see the delicate webbing of veins beneath the skin that never seemed like skin, the faint marble sheen to her brow that I refused to notice.
A hairline crack glides from the corner of her eye to her ear, a silver thread pulled tight.
Pressure.
A soft, dry sound of that chalk kissing a board.
The fissure blossoms without blood, without bruise: a spiderweb of white lines racing across Amira's face. Her smile stays.
"Thank you, Mama," Amira says once more.
Amira's head impoldes, the woman's hand crushing her in an instant. Amira collapses into pieces, falling into the mother's waiting palms—shards the size of petals, and slivers thin as fingernails. And the soft patter against the membrane floor.
The woman takes the remaining pieces of Amira and shoves them into her mouth. "Such a good girl," she hums. Then, the woman's gaze shifts to me.
"Now, time to deal with the Dauntless."