It turned out that two secret passages beneath the same school, even ones that Warren insisted were connected to each other, could be very different. These had none of the smoothness or animal breathing sensation of those under the plantworking building. They bore obvious marks of the smugglers who had carved them out, both in their roughness and in the discarded crates, barrels, and dead lanterns in every corner. At one point someone had even thought it was a good idea to lay a rug over the hardpacked dirt floor. Benji recoiled when he realized that a horde of bugs was hard at work chewing through the fabric.

  Benji continued his downward trajectory, all alone. He hoped it wasn’t some kind of metaphor.

  Warren had declined to enter the passages with him, although he’d been kind enough to assure Benji that he’d report his absence to the authorities should he be gone more than a week.

  “Consider it an expression of faith in your navigation abilities,” he said.

  “I’m sure your faith will come in handy when whatever’s down there decides to eat me.”

  “Apologies. My faith was in your navigation, not your defensive spellwork.”

  Since revealing the existence of the road beneath his teashop, Warren hadn’t just been unhelpful. When Benji described the room where he’d seen Nella, he’d provided directions to a room he thought was similar. In his smuggling days, apparently it had been completely empty, the site of more than one impromptu concert due to its “fantastic acoustics.”

  Benji considered how much he’d learned about his favorite teashop proprietor in just the past hour. He felt bad that in all his time in the shop, he’d never asked personal enough questions to lead Warren down these avenues.

  Benji stopped as he rounded a corner and his foot made a squelching sound. He pulled back, startled, something wet and viscous coming in over the tops of his boots. He held up the magelight Warren had given him. The lower third of his right leg was covered in a gray liquid that looked far grosser than any of Edwin’s potions. And the gray liquid was moving.

  He took three shuffling steps back as the substance slid down his leg of its own accord, coalescing into a roughly ovaloid blob the size of a small dog, and coming out of his boots with the horrible inverse of a squelch. The blob raised itself onto one end, standing as tall as it could. The back of the oval rested in a puddle of similar liquid that spread as far down the hallway as Benji could see. Somehow he had the impression of this all being a single entity—albeit one without the benefit of bones.

  The entity looked at him.

  Or at least, it regarded him. It was impossible to call it looking since the thing didn’t have eyes.

  Through mounting panic screaming that he should be running back the way he’d come, Benji’s mind came up with a word. He thought this creature might be a Trug. He’d never seen one, only knew that they consumed garbage and were considered as intelligent as humans.

  He’d also just stumbled right into one’s nest.

  The Trug raised itself, continuing to focus on Benji. Behind it, several similar shapes rose in the dark. Was this some kind of attack force?

  The Trugs swayed from side to side, making sounds not unlike those produced by stirring overly runny oatmeal. The sides of the one in front of him slowly drifted outward, forming protrusions somewhere between tentacles and arms. The tentacle arms stretched slowly toward Benji, deeply disconcerting if not outright threatening, especially as the magelight pierced through the liquid and it became clear that there was nothing but liquid giving the creature structure—no brain, no bones, no internal organs of any kind. He would have to ask one of the bioworking faculty about this, if he happened to survive. The tentacles closed gently over the magelight, teasing liquid closing around it.

  Against his best judgement, Benji let go.

  A sudden stillness came over the other Trugs, as if Benji had just done something notable. The Trug cradled the magelight lantern in its tentacles and then, with a motion so sudden and disturbing that it made Benji cry out, it schlorched the entire thing into its center.

  The magelight hung suspended inside the Trug, illuminating the clear gray-green from the inside out. Light filtered all the way down the rest of the nest, sending a faint glow through the Trugs and the fluid beneath them. A sound came from the group. It was unlike any animal sound Benji had ever heard before, and yet he thought he understood.

  The Trugs were laughing.

  Benji chuckled uncomfortably. There was nothing malicious in the laughter. Only playfulness, as if eating a magelight was just the sort of prank a Trug was expected to play on a lone traveler in the dark.

  “Do you eat magelights often?” Benji said, with no idea if the Trugs could understand him. “I can’t imagine they’re very nutritious.”

  The aqueous laughter continued.

  “Under ordinary circumstances, I’d be more than happy to let you keep it, but I’ve got quite a bit of ground to cover, and some of it may be dark. So I’ll have to ask for my magelight back once you’re done playing with it, if it’s all the same to you.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  As one, the Trugs turned to each other, their top halves bending together as if conferring. Benji thought the motion was probably for his benefit, as he was almost positive they could communicate through the enjoining liquid.

  What happened next was almost too fast for Benji to follow. The Trug who’d swallowed the lantern ejected it from its body, sending it into the body of the next Trug. This one also shot the lantern out to be consumed by the next Trug, and on and on until each Trug had briefly held the lantern, and the final one shot it into Benji’s very confused arms.

  The lantern was cold and slippery, deeply oily in a way that made Benji hope Warren had good soap back in the teashop.

  Benji thanked the Trugs, bowing probably overly formally, and turned back to the passage. Their laughter still reverberated a hundred yards on.

  “If that’s the worst of it, maybe I can handle this underground adventuring thing,” Benji said to himself. Even as he did, he thought of breathing walls and Nella’s haggard expression. Neither was the work of a Trug.

  Benji continued his descent, occasionally losing his grip on the now slippery magelight. Luckily the metal frame that housed it was sturdy, and didn’t look any worse for bouncing along the floor a few times.

  After another ten minutes, Benji thought he was nearing his destination. He consulted the scribbled notes with Warren’s instructions, then made a sharp right into the darkest section of tunnel so far.

  Now he knew he was close. Scraggly shadows in the magelight revealed the first vines clinging to the tunnel walls. These were skinny, overgrown in an unhealthy brown. And yet they led decidedly onward, downward, wrapping around each other as if fighting for any available space against the rocky walls and ceiling. Benji’s heart jumped as he felt the familiar sensation of hot air. It was not nearly as strong as it had been under the plantworking building, but it still felt like the breath of some terribly large creature. In and out.

  Benji didn’t know what he would find down here in the dark. Whatever it was, though, whatever secret Nella felt the need to hide, he had to know. He considered whether he would somehow be implicated in the eyes of the school if Nella was hiding something against school—or maybe even Thelspoint—rules. He had so many good reasons not to continue. In the end, his concern for Nella overrode everything. He’d spent the last thirteen years living a life where he never went outside his comfort zone, where he never needed to show his courage to anyone else, much less himself. He hadn’t come to the University to continue that life. He would follow this passage wherever it led, even if something far worse than a Trug waited at the end of it.

  When Benji came out in the cavernous room, the breathing sensation increased. Every rush of air added to his agitation. Benji pressed those thoughts down, focusing instead on his curiosity.

  The first thing he noticed was that the room wasn’t as large as it had seemed at first. Its tall columns gave the impression of an infinitely open space, but Warren’s robust magelight pierced the darkness all the way up to a roof not more than forty feet above. A roof absolutely covered in vines.

  Inspecting the vines on the columns, Benji noticed in alarm they were wrapped so tightly that they actually cut into the stone. It resembled a slow choking, like a giant snake bent on an unhurried yet terrible purpose. He reached out to touch the nearest vine, preparing for the room to erupt.

  Nothing happened.

  The vine was rough, composed of dozens of individual threads, which turned over each other, wrapping in a ropelike vise that only added to the strangling impression. Benji’s first thought was to compare the movements of the vine with the breathing sounds. It was hard to tell whether his mind simply wanted to make the connection, or if the vine did move ever so slightly under his shaking hand.

  With the benefit of more time to inspect, Benji could see that the vines weren’t random. While they did spiral over each other, doubling back especially as they hit the pillars, they angled toward a singular point high on the wall to his right, perhaps twenty feet up. It was the same point where Nella had been focused when he’d interrupted her. He looked across the room to the opening he had come out of that day, where the passage led back to campus. Warren had possibly been overly generous in his assessment of Benji’s navigational skills, because he couldn’t have said just moments before which direction would take him back to the plantworking building, or indeed, back to the teashop.

  Anxiety growing in his stomach, Benji crept toward the convergence point. The vines were thicker here, sprouting large brown leaves that rattled as air passed through them. Benji’s steps echoed thunderously.

  He looked up the wall, finding a spot where the leaves were so thick that it was impossible to tell what lay beneath them. He held his magelight up. It was too far to see much.

  Once again, Benji put out a hand, this time letting it rest on one of the leaves, which was larger than his hand.

  This time, the leaf moved.

  It curled back at his touch, forming a tight roll. The other leaves around it followed suit. They wrapped themselves loudly into a curled posture. Benji sprang back. A wave of closing leaves passed up the wall, until it reached the thickest spot. As every leaf closed, the plant life behind them came into view.

  Benji squinted at the dark shapes pressed into a circular hollow that the vines had ground into the wall. Then three large shapes slowly unfurled from the hollow, shaking themselves like dogs after a long slumber. Three giant flowers moved on three foot-thick steam. Once again, Benji had the disconcerting experience of being regarded by a being without eyes, as the three stems raised themselves above him, and the flowers opened to reveal pointed stamens almost a yard long. The flowers looked like some kind of orchid, or perhaps a nasturtium, deep orange with aggressively curling petals.

  No orchid could look at someone with such obvious rage. The three flowers spread, forming a semi-circle that trapped Benji inside. He started backwards, toward the plantworking exit, only to find his way suddenly blocked. Vines had shot out from the pillar behind him, wrapping around his feet, his legs, one finding his hand. He yelled as more vines covered him, now wrapping up his torso. He struggled fruitlessly. Vines crushed his chest. His breathing became difficult, even as stabs of pain shot through his knees. The vine on his chest sprang up to find his throat.

  This time when he tried to cry out, he could only gasp.

  Benji found himself wishing he’d stayed and played games with the Trugs rather than pursuing his curiosity further.

  Gulping for breath that would not come, he tried any feeble plantworking he could think of. His vision started to wobble, and the pain in his extremities was suddenly, ominously, far away. Nothing worked against the vise-like grip.

  As his world began to grow dark, Benji wished, for the millionth and perhaps last time, that he was a better mage than he was.