Plantworking continued to be Benji’s best class. So far, he had managed to significantly improve growth and maturation, and made a bed of flowers that usually only thrived in dry climates hardy enough to survive in the city’s often damp autumn. Most of their work took place on top of the building, in the greenhouses connected to the top floor classroom. Regardless of where they were, Benji always eagerly awaited Nella’s arrival. The moment she came in—invariably carrying more plants than one person should be holding or with a most likely poisonous vine draped around her arms—was always a bright spot in his day. Especially if she noticed him, and said hi.

  Today, however, Nella hadn’t shown up despite this class requiring hundreds of pounds of fertilizer that an assistant definitely should have helped with.

  “You have the stare of a man whose thoughts are lost to him,” Maynard said as they helped carry the sacks of fertilizer from the storage shed, across the rooftop, and down the steps into the classroom. Ordinarily the view was a treat from atop the pyramidal plantworking building, looking as it did down over the University Quarter and past the river, but a chill had fallen over the rooftop, gently suggesting fall and making everyone a little glad to retreat into the warmth of the greenhouse.

  “I’m not staring,” Benji said. Maynard had no problem moving two of the heavy sacks, even as Benji struggled to carry one over his shoulders.

  “Looking around desperately, then. Perhaps for a certain classroom assistant?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Benji held the greenhouse door open with his foot so Maynard could pass him, then began transferring the fertilizer into the low troughs along the side wall. Maynard poured by making the bag invisible, which somehow allowed the fertilizer to pour out. No human magic could make an object insubstantial like that.

  “Apologies, I must be mistaken. I just thought you two seemed to possess an unspoken rapport.”

  Benji had no reason (perhaps other than his own pride) to lie to Maynard.

  “She wasn’t in metalworking yesterday, either.” Her absence had forced Benji to work with the professor as his partner, and Mason’s presence hadn’t remotely improved his sense of safety. If anything, the professor’s insistence on carrying out the most advanced version of each exercise and handing off the working to Benji’s less experienced hands at the exact wrong moments, made the class feel more precarious than ever.

  “Maybe she’s on a trip, or was abducted by an Eltim prince,” Maynard said. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.”

  The sacks had turned substantial once again in Maynard’s hands, and he tossed them onto the pile in the corner.

  “Do Eltim princes abduct human students?” The behavior of the fair Eltim people was a blind spot for him, as they lived in their own community in Thelspoint’s eastern wards, and only left to dance through the streets at certain phases of the moon or stand outside the gates when an Eltim ambassador came to town and needed a chorus of singers to welcome them.

  “You ask as if I know,” Maynard said. “Do you think I’m part Eltim?”

  “I don’t know what you are,” Benji said. “Definitely not fully human.”

  “Can you imagine the horror of being fully human?”

  “Very well, thank you.”

  Maynard’s smile had a feral snarl beneath it. “Is it human to have a crush on someone you could not ethically date? I mean, she does grade your assignments.”

  “I wasn’t even . . .” Benji trailed off. He’d certainly had this thought. “I mean, you’re right. I don’t think I’d feel comfortable dating the classroom assistant. And besides, she’s probably not interested. She’s busy with . . . I don’t know . . . plant stuff.”

  Maynard smiled again. Benji found he preferred him when he was frowning or staring mysteriously into the middle distance. “Do you wish for me to advise you on this matter?”

  Benji shook his head. “This situation is already weird enough.”

  “Weirdness does tend to follow me.” Maynard led the way back to the center of the classroom to receive instruction on what they would be doing with the fertilizer. “At least you only have to wait until the end of the semester, when you’ll no longer be in her plantworking section.”

  Benji didn’t dignify this with a response.

  At the end of class, Benji stopped to talk to Matilde. He tried to transition his initial inquiry about the classification of different elements necessary for plant growth—more of an excuse than a real question—into asking about Nella’s whereabouts.

  Stolen story; please report.

  “She said she was sick today,” Matilde replied. “A great day for it, too. I just had you all spend an hour carrying around fertilizer rather than learning.

  “I hope she’s feeling alright.”

  “I saw her in her office as I was walking up. Must be quite the disease if it keeps her from climbing up to our classroom from the first floor.” Especially since the building contained a set of elevators capable of launching you from the ground floor to the top in just a few seconds (Benji vastly preferred the stairs). Matilde sighed as if this sort of behavior was to be expected when employing a gifted plantworker. She turned to her desk, seeming to think of something.

  “While you’re here, would you mind bringing these down to her office?” Matilde asked. She placed six seed packets in his hands. “She should at least be able to reorganize seeds in her state.”

  Benji felt a growing sense of anxiety as he climbed down the stairs to the assistants’ offices. He wondered why his steps suddenly echoed so loudly over the worn wood floors. The plantworking building seemed like one of the newer academic buildings, but the wood paneled walls were in a state of jaunty disrepair and dustiness that seemed a trademark of those who worked with plants. Each of the four plantworking assistants had their own tiny office, arranged around a common area filled with all manner of empty pots and loose gardening implements. Nella’s office had no windows. Magelights provided the only illumination over walls made entirely of moss. The office was empty. Benji felt a tinge of disappointment. He ripped a sheaf of paper out of his notebook and scrawled a note on it. Benji had to clear a small area on the cluttered desk before setting the seeds down. He laid them in a circle surrounding the note, so that it looked like some kind of ancient ritual paying homage to the paper. He added an addendum to the note: P.S. The plant seed people have now decided they worship paper with human scribbles on it. Plan your weekend accordingly.

  Satisfied that he had sufficiently made a fool of himself, Benji left the empty offices, leaving the door ajar behind him. The hallway felt odd to him, not nearly as still and quiet as it should have been. A slight breeze carried down the hallway, incongruous in what had been still air. It came not from the front door, but from deeper in the building, in an area Benji had never had any reason to visit.

  Maynard would probably be wondering where Benji was. He decided that doing his own disappearing act would serve Maynard right for continually disappearing from sight with no notice. He followed the movement of air toward the back of the building, where the wood around the offices changed into a more uniform, institutional brick. There was no rule against him being here, but he found himself holding his breath anyway, measuring his steps to prevent them from echoing on the stone floors.

  He came out at an unassuming lounge, its chairs and tables so clean—yet so dated—that Benji wondered if they’d ever been used. The spookiness of a space designed for communal use lying dormant washed over him. It was as if everyone had collectively decided this area had something off about it, and some bad thing might befall them if they did their homework there.

  And if that bad thing involved the integrity of the wall behind the couch, they were absolutely right.

  At first glance it looked like the shadows just happened to be deeper there than elsewhere. At second glance, about shoulder high, and just visible behind the dusty upholstery, a gap yawned where there should only have been brick. On closer inspection, Benji saw lights far off down what appeared to be a passageway, casting a glow over smooth walls. The passageway dove downward, disappearing out of view just after the first magelight.

  “I don’t think that’s a classroom,” Benji said to himself.

  As if in response, the passage breathed. Hot air rushed over him as if passing out of bellows. The brick distorted around it.

  To most—at least to the wise—finding a secret, breathing passageway beneath the plantworking building would’ve been a good excuse to call it a day, grab three or four plates of dessert from the dining hall, and curl up in one’s dorm room. Benji had never claimed wisdom, and was still new enough to the luster of university life that, rather than fearing what lay down the passage, or considering that he hadn’t learned a single defensive spell, all he could think was: Today rules.

  Looking around to ensure there were no other students or professors in the hall, Benji slid the couch out of its position and slipped behind it. Grooves ran across the stone floor, as if the couch had slid out many times on the same track. Before he started down it, Benji paused to inspect the opening. The walls at the passage’s mouth puckered slightly, like a creature’s lips. He knew, instinctively, that this mouth could be made to close as easily as it could open. Just how it might close was anyone’s guess.

  Benji plunged in.

  Benji jumped at every sound as he traveled down and down and down beneath smooth stone walls and around twisting corners, noting each magelight placed at perfect intervals to prevent the passage from getting too dark. It seemed to stretch infinitely. Until it suddenly stopped.

  Or rather, it turned sharply enough to obscure what was around the next corner. The hot air had only intensified, accompanied by an increase in humidity that made Benji feel as if he was walking through the lung of some great beast. The walls remained still in their solid stone form. If they had started breathing, Benji didn’t think he could keep his nerve.

  Around the corner, the end of the passage was the beginning of a massive, dimly lit space. A magelight near the entrance pierced only the first couple dozen feet. The cavern might go on forever. Several columns rose into the blackness, seeming to cut off into ruined stumps well before they could support anything. The air remained warm, almost sticky. It was no longer debatable. Something in the cavern was breathing, sucking air in with slow breaths, and letting them out in a wash of hot air.

  Benji started forward, but then his attention caught on something along the wall to his right, close to a hundred yards away. It was the only other visible magelight.

  It illuminated a figure.

  Nella’s posture lacked its usually spryness. She was tense, her shoulders set forward, a cloak he had never seen her wear clasped around her neck.

  And she was talking to something on the wall.

  From here, the magelight was too dim to see what it was.

  Then three things happened at once: the walls suddenly shuddered as if the source of the breathing had coughed, Nella whipped around, and Benji slipped back into the passage, sprinting as silently as he could back to the entrance.