Finding home would be the hard part, she thought with a sigh. All the other occasions she had transcended time had been with the aid of some supernatural force like the ghost of the First Rider, or Laurelyn, queen of Argenthyne. She had not achieved it on her own, but there had to be a way.

Their descent down the stairs seemed to go much faster than her last journey into the underground. Their feet thudded almost rhythmically on the stone steps. The bonewood kept her from straining her leg too much.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, passed through the door at the landing, and entered the underground, its existence still shocked her. Even though she knew it was there, had seen it herself and pictured it in her mind since, she still could not believe it. She shied from her reflection in dusty, cracked windows. Mourned once again for the city, her home, that was no more.

The professor watched her, his taper casting a half-shadow across his face. “Yes, no matter how often I travel this way, I, too, feel unsettled.”

They continued on past the facades of buildings that were familiar, but were not. Walking in the underground oppressed Karigan as though all the weight of the earth that covered it also bore down on her shoulders.

“I also fear,” the professor said, “that some day some catastrophe could do the same to Mill City. It is not the most beautiful of places, but it is my home.”

That, she could understand. They went on, saying no more as if afraid to break the melancholy silence of the underground. She tried to remember this section of the city as daylit and full of travelers afoot and on horseback, riding in carriages and wagons, the traffic streaming up and down the street as shoppers paused to peer into windows, but she could not quite get past the deadness of it all.

Eventually they came to the building that contained the stairs that led into the bowels of the mill. They climbed and climbed, and kept climbing until they alighted on the landing of the second floor where the professor kept his library and Cade Harlowe had practiced his fighting technique. This time, however, Cade was absent, and all was dark except for the professor’s taper, which was no more than a firefly glow in the vast space. In moments he raised a lever that ignited the phosphorene lights, leaving the pair of them blinking for several moments.

The professor shed his somber mood and strode across the floor. Karigan hurried after him, once again amazed by the grand scale of the room with its velvet draperies, polished floor, and fine furniture occupying an otherwise rough interior. She glanced at Cade’s wall of practice weapons with some longing. Staves, swords, knives, axes, and daggers she understood; the cabinet with a few of the snub-nosed weapons—the guns like that which the Inspector had brandished earlier in the day, she did not.

When they arrived at the professor’s sitting area with his desk and shelves of books, he turned to her. “You have questions about the rise of the empire. I will tell you what I have discerned from accounts that were long ago outlawed. There is so much that remains unanswered, but I will tell you what I know. Perhaps you’ll be able to answer a few things in exchange.”

At that moment, Karigan did not see the sometimes preoccupied professor, befuddled by women and the dictates of society. She didn’t even see the man made solemn by memories of the fire that had destroyed the other mill buildings of this complex and killed hundreds of workers. No, she saw a man with a canny eye and a sharp wit, the man who had been able to hide his anti-empire activities and cache of artifacts from imperial authorities for a very long time. She saw a man brimming with secrets.

“I need to know,” she said. “How did Sacoridia fall?”

THE FALL OF SACORIDIA

The professor gestured for Karigan to take a seat on one of the overstuffed leather chairs while he remained standing, his hands clasped behind his back as if he was about to deliver a lecture before his students.

“You are aware of the dissidents that called themselves Second Empire?” he asked.

“Very,” she replied.

“They built up their army by conventional and . . . magical means, enough to actually challenge King Zachary’s forces.”

“The king has been working to counteract them.”

“He failed.”

The words fell as a blow that would have knocked her to her knees had she been standing. Rationally she’d known King Zachary must have failed for his realm to have come to this end, but hearing it spoken so baldly? She closed her eyes wishing it was not so but knew wishing would change nothing.

“By whatever means,” the professor continued, “the forces of Second Empire grew to be a serious threat. Battles were won and lost, but the fiercest and bloodiest happened right here.” He flung his arms wide to encompass the area around them. “Mill City not only stands on parts of the Old City, but also on a battlefield. The last battle took place before the Old City’s gates. It is said the conflict raged for months with Second Empire seeking to breach the city walls.” He paused, as if deep in thought, then added, “They don’t make walls like that anymore, do they. Clan D’Yer’s work, if I’m not mistaken?”

“You’re not,” Karigan replied. Clan D’Yer, renowned masons, had also built the vast wall that separated Sacoridia from Blackveil Forest; a wall that had withstood the forces of nature and magic for a thousand years. There had been no better stoneworkers than Clan D’Yer, and yet, as she had seen today, Sacor City’s walls, and the castle itself, had been more than breached—they’d been pulverized. “How did . . . how did they overcome the walls?”