“What is this place?” Evelyn asked, stunned.

Before her, the stone corridor ended in a doorway, beyond which stood a monumental gallery, roughly spherical in shape. An underground lake filled the bottom part of the gallery, with stone bridges and catwalks crisscrossing the empty space, leading into caves and passageways on the walls. It was all very rough-looking. At first glance, one could mistake that web of rock for some sort of natural occurrence, and yet it was too precise, too organized to have been formed by accident.

The walls of the gallery were sprinkled with glowing crystals of varied shapes and sizes. The light they emitted was reflected onto the surface of the water, and the effect was truly fantastic. It was a little like walking among stars.

“The Place Below,” Oliver announced. “It’s how my grandfather calls it. We believe it’s one of the hidden cities of the first people. Surely you’ve heard the stories.”

“Can’t say I have,” said Eve. She followed Oliver as the boy led the way down one of the rock bridges.

“Really?” Oliver asked her, surprised. “You’re not from around here, are you?” Eve told him she wasn’t. “It’s an old tale,” said Oliver. “The first people were the ones who lived in this land before the settlers from the east came. In their time, there were no kingdoms, and the only cities one could find were places like this one, hidden in the depths of mountains.” He stopped to look around, marveling at the beauty of the space they were in. “Well, that’s how the stories go. The first people are long gone by now, and not much remains from their time, except for places like these.”

“How did they build all of this?” Eve asked, staring around in admiration.

Oliver chuckled. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

It really did. “So... if these were built by people of the past, how come there’s a tunnel leading straight to your house?”

“My father built it,” the boy told her. “The tunnel, I mean.” He stopped and looked around for a little while, before pointing to one of the stone bridges. “This way,” he said. “If you don’t mind me asking... err... sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“It’s Evelyn,” she told him.

“Right. So, if you don’t mind me asking, Evelyn, why is the crown hunting you down?”

“I stole a horse,” she admitted. “And some clothes and food, also.”

The boy nodded. “Must have been a very important horse, for the King’s men to come all this way to get you.”

“I suppose so,” Eve replied.

They kept on walking, through stone walkways and tunnels. Each chamber they arrived in could be considered a smaller version of the lake gallery. It was a kind of maze, something like a giant ant nest. There were too many tunnels, too many paths. It would be easy to get lost in there without a guide.

“The... thing you said before...” Oliver hesitated. “That kings are abusing their power, and that freedom means abolishing hierarchy... Did you mean that?”

“Oh. That.” said Evelyn, absentmindedly. “Of course I did.”

“So you’re a revolutionary, right? You want to overthrow King Leon?”

Eve pondered about that question for a moment, before answering.

“I don’t know who your king is,” she told the boy. “And I firmly believe that every class system is a piece of shit. So yes, I’d be happy to see a king go down, any king. But honestly, though, right now I’m really just trying to go back home.”

“I see...” said the boy.

They walked in silence for a while, before the boy spoke again.

“My father was a revolutionary,” he said. “He was a part of this group that wanted to overthrow the crown. Give power to the people, and things like that. He built the tunnel to the Place Below so that he and his group could smuggle goods and hide people who were being persecuted. But, well, at some point, King Leon caught word of it, and the royal guard hunt down every last one of them. That was twelve years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Eve told him. She’d actually wanted to say “I’m sorry for your loss,” but she wasn’t sure if Oliver's father was still alive, and it did not seem sensible to ask. “Is that... the reason you and your grandfather are helping me escape? Because you thought I was a revolutionary?”

“Not exactly,” said Oliver. “Grandpa hates the crown. A lot of people do, especially in cities that are farther away from the Capital. They buy our produce for next to nothing, and we get no say in the matter. They arrest anyone who practices witchcraft, and force people to conscript. And the rest of the time, we’re left to fend for ourselves.

“But grandpa has also always been against what my father did, the whole revolution business. He would pick fights with my father because he did not want him to get me involved. And he became even more dead set against it after father was arrested. It’s hard to think he would just start risking his neck for revolutionaries all of a sudden, especially a stranger like you.

“And yet he did, didn’t he? I can’t say for sure why he chose to help you, but... I think he may have seen some of father’s resolve on you. The things you said then... they’re not much different from what father used to say, long ago. So maybe that’s part of the reason.”

“Your grandfather seems nice,” Eve remarked.

Oliver nodded. “He is.”

They walked into one of the tunnels on the walls. Oliver stopped, suddenly. Eve really wasn’t paying much attention, so she ended up bumping into him.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

The boy shook his head. “Oh, hm...” he hesitated, “everything is... fine? We just... took a wrong turn left. My bad.” He turned around and walked back out of the corridor, and into the gallery behind them.

Five minutes later, it happened again. They reached a dead-end. In silence, Oliver turned around and retraced his steps to the previous room, with Eve running after him.

“Um, Oliver... I don’t mean to sound rude, but... you do know where you’re going, right?”

“Of course I do,” said the boy. “I’ve been here often with my father.”

“Oh... with your father,” Eve pointed out. “And have you been here on your own?”

“Well, no,” Oliver admitted. “But I know the way. Don’t worry about it.”

Eve worried, of course. But she shrugged, and kept following him, anyway. It was only when the pair passed by the exact same star-shaped crystal for the third time that Eve decided to take action. She stopped walking, and called him.

“Oliver?”

The boy stopped as well, and turned around to look at her.

“What is it?” he asked.

“We’re lost, aren’t we?”

—

Outside, at the edge of the forest, Brianna paced around nervously. Catherine, the cat, sat quietly on the forest floor, silently watching her friend.

“What’s taking her so long?” Brianna asked. “It’s been hours. The botanist can’t be that far away. She should be back by now.”

“Meow...” said Cat. It was supposed to mean “don’t worry, Brianna, she’ll turn up soon,” but, unfortunately, Brianna didn’t speak cat, and the message was lost on her. It wouldn’t have mattered much, anyway, because the girl was nervous, and when Brianna got nervous, she also got angry.

“I swear to heavens, Catherine, if Evelyn doesn’t come back soon, I’ll—”

A noise jolted Brianna, and she stopped talking. She turned around, searching for the source of the sound. It had sounded like the rustling of leaves and the snapping of branches. Brianna saw nobody.

Without warning, a coarse jute bag was forced onto her head, and someone grabbed her from behind. She struggled, trying to free herself from their grip. “Let me go!” the girl screamed, her voice muffled by the bag. Then she felt a sharp pain on the side of her head, and passed out almost immediately.

—

It was almost nightfall by the time Eve and Oliver finally saw the sky again. After walking in circles for an hour, and winding up in dead ends dozens of times, Eve had convinced the boy to let her take the lead, and then attempted to find her way out by intuition alone. She remembered the boy saying the Place Below was inside a mountain, so she reasoned the paths that led up would be more likely to emerge into an exit of some sort. This hunch of hers was so right that she managed to find the way out on her first try. It might have been beginner’s luck, but she still found it delightful to see the look of indignation on Oliver’s face.

They were on the side of the mountain that faced away from the city. Oliver guided Eve as they walked through the woods, going around the mountain. After twenty minutes of walking, Eve caught a glimpse of the setting sun on the horizon, painting the sky a beautiful shade of red. She stopped to appreciate the sight, and that’s when she heard a peculiar sound. More specifically, a

“Meow!”

Was it a cat? Or was it, maybe, a Cat?

Evelyn looked around, and found this beautiful black cat climbing down the trunk of a nearby tree. Oliver stared as well. The cat made her way up to Eve, meowing incessantly, almost as if it was trying to tell her something.

“Okay, okay, hold on,” Eve told her. Then she turned to the boy beside her. “Oliver, close your eyes.”

“Eh? Why?” asked the boy, surprised.

“Just do it,” she ordered. “And don’t you dare peek.”

Oliver shrugged, and covered his eyes with one hand. Eve demanded that he turn around, facing away from them, just in case. Then she took the vial of pepper from one of her pockets, uncorked it, and offered it for the cat to sniff. She sneezed, and suddenly Catherine was back to human. She jumped on Eve, hugging her tightly.

“Thank goodness you’re okay!” said the taller girl.

“Cat!!” Eve yelped, blushing furiously. Did she not realize she was still naked?

“Who’s there?” Oliver asked. “Can I open my eyes yet?”

“No!” Cat and Eve shouted in unison.

Cat backed away from the hug. She had a downcast look in her eyes. “I need to tell you something…” she began to say, her words filled with anxiety.

“First things first,” said Eve, interrupting her. “Where’s your robe?”

The girl looked around. “Over there, I think.” She pointed at what seemed to be a clearing beyond some nearby trees. The two girls walked there, then searched around for a little while before they managed to find Cat’s robe lying next to a pile of rocks. Eve caught herself stealing glances at her friend more than once, and snapped back to reality with a racing heart in her chest and a vivid blush on her cheeks. “Stop that, Evelyn!” she muttered to herself. “She’s just a friend. Don’t stare at your friend!”

Cat put on the robe, quickly, as Eve tried to shake those intrusive thoughts off her head. She told herself she had simply been doing it out of curiosity, given the uniqueness of the situation. The girl wasn’t ready to admit she had been staring at her friend with lustful eyes.

“Okay, so what is it that you wanted to tell me?” Eve asked her. “And where’s Bree, by the way?”

Cat winced. “Well... that is exactly what I need to tell you. They took her.”

Eve furrowed her brow, confused.

“Who took her? What do you mean?”

“The pigs,” Cat answered. “They found us here in the forest, earlier. They sneaked up on us, and took Brianna with them.”

For a moment, it felt as if Eve’s heart had stopped beating.

“I... I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop them.”

Cat’s voice began to break at the end of that sentence, and it seemed that she could start crying at any minute. Eve walked up to her and hugged her. Cat really did start crying, her tears wetting the shoulder of Eve’s shirt.

“Hey, it’s not your fault,” said the shorter girl, trying to console her. But Eve’s voice, too, was filled with anxiety. She was worried, and she couldn’t help thinking that it was all her fault. Maybe if she’d returned sooner, none of this would have happened. It was too late for that now.

“We’ll go after her,” Eve decided, wiping Cat’s wet cheeks on the sleeves of her shirt. Cat smiled at her, a tentative, frail smile, but a beautiful one, nevertheless.

“Heeeey!” we heard a voice from nearby. “Can I open my eyes now?!”

Catherine chuckled, and Eve too managed to grin, despite the gravity of the situation. They walked back to where Oliver had been left to wait for them.

“You can,” Eve replied, as she pulled the boy’s hand off his face. “Oliver, this is Cat— I mean, Catherine. She’s a friend of mine. Cat, this boy is the grandson of the botanist, from the town nearby. He and his grandfather helped me escape the royal guard.”

“The botanist...” Cat muttered.

“Right,” said Eve. She dug into her purse for the bundle of herbs. “Here. Cloudweed.”

Cat stared at the plants for a moment, then raised her eyes at Eve, and the girl could see them beginning to tear up again. “I should never have asked for this,” said Cat.

“Don’t say that,” Eve retorted. “You had no way of knowing this would happen. I told you, it’s not your fault, Cat. Really.”

“What’s going on?” Oliver asked, confused, staring between the two girls.

“The royal guard took my sister,” she explained. “But we’re going after her.”

Oliver pondered about that for a moment. “Okay, but... do you know where they took her?”

“Stonepit Fortress,” said Cat, demurely.

The boy’s jaw dropped. “You’re joking me, right?” he argued. “That’s where they take state enemies! Evelyn told me you guys just stole a horse!”

Cat shrugged. “Actually... I’m kind of a wanted person in the kingdom, in a manner of speaking. If the king and his men knew that Brianna was helping me, they’ll take her to Stonepit, no doubt.”

“You’re a what?!” Oliver protested.

“It’s… err, a long story,” Cat averted her eyes.

Oliver sighed. “Look, let’s be honest here for a moment. My father was a state enemy. It’s been twelve years since he was captured, and we haven’t heard of him since. Twelve years! I’ve dreamed of breaking into Stonepit Fortress, to see dad again, and to get him out. But I can’t. Nobody can. And surely you can’t be thinking of doing that, right? Because, first of all, how are you even going to get there?”

“Is it too far?” Eve asked.

The boy chuckled. “Don’t you know?” said the boy. “Sorry, I forgot you’re not from our kingdom, Evelyn. How far isn’t really the issue. You see, Stonepit Fortress is a secret prison. Nobody knows where it is.”

“I do,” said Cat, decisively.

Oliver stared at her in disbelief. “How?”

Cat took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. She looked miserable.

“Because I’ve been there.”