Moments later, I found myself standing at the bottom of the world. Well, not technically the bottom, but it certainly smelled like it.
The lowest floor of the prison had always possessed that certain charm—like an open wound that refused to heal no matter how many times someone scraped it clean.
The air was thick, too thick, clinging to the skin like damp velvet. It hummed with the kind of anticipation only old, forgotten places could muster, as though the walls themselves were waiting for something.
Something terrible, or at least mildly entertaining.
I took a deep breath, smiling despite myself. Gods, the place was almost nostalgic now.
The others were already gathered by the obsidian double doors—the great and terrible gateway that lead to the main cavern of the mining pits. They loomed there, impossibly tall, polished to a reflective sheen that captured our distorted shapes in its surface.
Freya caught me first, which was terribly unfortunate for the both of us.
Her boots struck the stone with the kind of purpose that made lesser men flinch. Even down here, beneath the low, grim torches, her golden spun hair gleamed like something sharp enough to draw blood.
She was frowning—though, to be fair, Freya’s face always looked like it had just been told a bad joke and was considering violence as the punchline.
"We have a problem," she said, crossing her arms like a punctuation.
"Ah," I sighed, spreading my arms in rapture. "Music to my ears. I do so love when you open with that. Really sets the tone for the morning—bright, bitter, and full of dread. Just how I like it."
She didn’t look impressed, which was fine. She rarely did. "Don’t start," she warned. "The keys you snagged didn’t work. None of them. The guards will notice we’re missing soon enough. We don’t have time to—"
"Relax," I interrupted, waving her words away as though they were flies. "He’ll be here any second."
Her eyes narrowed. "Who?"
Before I could even say another word, salvation arrived—heralded first by the faintest of sounds. A jingle, soft and rhythmic. Then came the footsteps. Heavy ones. Far too many to count.
They echoed down the stairwell, all steel, authority, and the faint tang of cheap tobacco. Freya’s hand shot to her blade, Brutus straightened from where he’d been leaning against the wall, and even Dregan stubbed out his cigar, cursing under his breath.
I, of course, remained exactly where I was, dusting off my sleeve with affected boredom. "Oh, good," I said. "Right on cue. I was worried I’d have to start the party without him."
"Who’s him?" Freya hissed.
"You’ll see," I whispered, lips curling. "Now then, everyone—against the wall. Look busy. Look guilty. Look like you’re not plotting treason. Whichever’s easiest."
The crew scrambled—though in a manner that could only be described as a collective failure of stealth. They lined up along the side of the wall, fidgeting like schoolchildren about to be caught cheating. I adjusted my skirt, smoothed my hair, and turned to face the staircase just as he appeared.
The correctional officer.
If divine retribution had a face, it would’ve been his—flushed, furious, and gleaming faintly with sweat. The man descended upon us like a thundercloud of bad intentions. Behind him came the rank and file—Section Six and Section Twelve, marching in less than perfect rhythm.
And then he saw me.
For one exquisite heartbeat, I watched his expression twist through an entire spectrum of emotion—shock, anger, confusion, mild constipation—before finally coming to settle on sheer, incredulous fury.
"What," he barked, voice echoing through the chamber like a cannon, "the fuck are you doing down here so early?"
Ah, there it was.
I offered him my brightest smile, the one I usually reserved for social events and funerals. "Well, good morning to you too, officer! Lovely place you’ve got here. Truly atmospheric. The mildew really brings out the despair in the décor."
He blinked at me as though deciding whether to hit me or have me exorcised. "Answer the damn question. What are you—" He gestured vaguely at me, as though I were too offensive to define. "—doing here?"
"Ah, that," I said, adopting a tone of mild innocence. "You see, I woke up early. Terrible habit. And I thought to myself, Loona, why not do something productive with your boundless charm and stunning work ethic? So I gathered my delightful little entourage and came down to get an early start on the mining, purely out of civic duty."
His brow twitched. "Civic duty."
"Yes," I said solemnly. "It’s this new thing I’m trying. You know, self-improvement, moral redemption, looking good in front of the gods—"
"Spare me the sermon," he snapped. "You expect me to believe you, of all people, suddenly grew a conscience?"
I tilted my head. "Conscience is such a strong word. Let’s call it... opportunistic enlightenment."
Behind me, Dregan snorted. I kicked him lightly without looking.
The officer sighed—deeply, the way only men forced to deal with me tended to sigh. Then he jabbed a thumb at the others. "And who the fuck are they supposed to be?"
I turned, making a show of glancing over my shoulder as though I’d forgotten they existed. "Oh, them? Background decoration, mostly. Though some tend to be quite handy with a pickaxe."
"Answer the damn question."
"Fine, fine." I clasped my hands primly. "These fine individuals are my assigned support crew. I thought, since we’ve been rather understaffed lately, I’d help fill the gap. We’re all team players here, aren’t we?"
His eyes narrowed, suspicion thick enough to chew on. "And who assigned them?"
I smiled, bright enough to blind. "Would you believe divine providence?"
"No."
"Then let’s say administrative oversight."
He exhaled heavily, clearly fighting the urge to throttle me. For a moment, I thought he might actually hit me, which would’ve been delightful.
But instead, he just muttered a string of creative profanities under his breath, rubbed a hand down his face, and finally jerked his head toward the doors. "Fine. You want an early start? Be my guest. But if you so much as breathe the wrong way in there, I’ll have your tongue nailed to the ore carts. Got it?"
"Crystal clear," I said, beaming. "Wouldn’t dream of misbehaving."
He didn’t believe me. Nobody ever did.
Still, he shoved a key—his key—into the lock and twisted. The mechanism groaned, old and resentful, before clicking open. The double doors swung wide, revealing the tunnel leading to the cavern beyond.
When at last we arrived in the central pit, the officer began barking orders at the others who fanned out to their respective stations, leaving my merry little band to shuffle inside and pretend to look industrious.
"Alright," I whispered from beneath my breath. "Act natural."
Brutus began stacking crates with too much enthusiasm, and Atticus knelt to inspect a pile of tools like he was conducting an autopsy. Victor, meanwhile, hovered beside me like an anxious ghost, eyes flicking constantly between the others and the map peeking out from his sleeve.
"Loona," he muttered to me, bumping my shoulder. "That’s the tunnel we’re after."
I followed his gaze to the far end of the cavern. And there, half-hidden behind a cluster of boulders was a small passageway, narrow, unlit, and half-collapsed.
"Charming," I said. "You do pick the most romantic destinations."
He ignored me, pointing again. "It’ll take us to the loading dock in no time."
"Splendid," I murmured, already calculating paths, exits, and angles of visibility. "So what’s the problem?"
Victor’s finger jabbed a slow, lazy arc toward the correctional officer standing dead-center in the cavern, boots spread, chest out, whip twirling like a conductor who’d never learned proper rhythm.
He stood tall enough to make me want to pat him on the head and tell him what a good boy he was—then stab him for the entertainment of the act—because that kind of authority, when unearned, always looked a little pathetic.
He swept his gaze slow and poisonous across the room, and the whip in his hand ticked in a way that suggested he was itching to rediscover the anatomy of every unfortunate soul within earshot.
Just then, Freya materialized at my other shoulder as if she’d been conjured from the shadows themselves. "We should kill him."
Her words landed like a grenade wrapped in a compliment—immediate, loud, and thoroughly honest—and for half a heartbeat I almost applauded out of sheer admiration for her directness.
Victor’s face tightened then, not from sympathy, heavens no, but from the kind of cold arithmetic that sits in the gut of men who trade in danger for profit.
"That wouldn’t be very wise," he said. "Correctional officers are required to preform a progress report every hour or so. If he were to miss one, it would arouse far too much suspicion. What we need is a distraction that’ll hold just long enough to let us slip by undetected."
Their eyes slid to me then. I raised my hands slowly, palms innocent, like a thief who’d suddenly remembered that he’d been doubling as a saint. "Oh fine," I chirped, smoothing my expression into something resembling contrition. "You can thank me later."
Without another word, they scattered with the efficiency of rats at the sound of a bell.
I bounced over to the correctional officer like some blithe catastrophe in a new hat and gave his sleeve a playful tug from behind.
The touch was harmless—almost innocent—a child’s mischief in a world too cruel for games. When he turned, his face twisted through disbelief, irritation, and something perilously close to embarrassment, like a man caught praying to the wrong gods.
For a heartbeat, neither of us spoke. His metal jaw clicked faintly in the silence, trying very hard not to creak under the weight of my gaze.
"Sir," I said at last, pitching my voice small and trembling—theatrical, fragile, every bit the sinner at confession. "I have... something to confess."
His eyes darted around, sharp with suspicion. "Confess?" he snapped. "You’ve got a confession?"
I nodded, all anxious energy and nervous charm. "Yes." I reached for his forearm then, clutching at the rough leather of his sleeve, turning the contact into something that felt almost intimate. "Please."
That one word landed like a blade—thin, deliberate, cutting straight through the iron of his skepticism. For a flicker of a moment, he hesitated. I could see it—the softening, the confusion, the human part of him he tried so hard to keep hidden.
Then he exhaled, a short, begrudging sigh, half annoyance, half curiosity. And then, because logic tends to abandon people in my presence, he let me guide him away.
My hand stayed on his sleeve, steady and pleading, my eyes wide and lost in just the right way. He followed, heavy steps echoing behind me like a man walking toward something he couldn’t quite name.
I glanced behind my shoulder then before nodding once, tiny and sly, the kind of nod that says "now" without whispering a single syllable.
Behind us, my crew began moving in perfect unison, vanishing into the dark like lovers sneaking out before dawn—quiet, clumsy, and reeking faintly of guilt.
And just like that, our plan was set in motion.