Page 155 of The Last Remaining Light

“Moving… toward where?” she asked.

The engineer’s mouth opened, but no sound came out at first. He looked toward the others as if hoping someone else would answer. No one did.

Finally, he said, “Down.”

Elowynn blinked then looked toward the dark tunnels.

The engineer continued, voice lower now. “We saw them from the upper service bridge. You know. Before it… fell. They were coming out of the side streets and lower galleries, all heading toward the old observatory foundations. Some seemed injured or could barely walk. They ignored people mostly, unless someone blocked their path.” He gulped, his throat moving. “That’s when they’d attack.”

Elowynn thought of the gallery. Of the Starless parting around Caelyn and of the child with the doll. Her fingers curled harder around the ruined toy before she noticed she was doing it.

“The old observatory foundations have been sealed for decades,” said Korvel, his expression unreadable.

“Mm, not all of them,” the engineer said.

His answer changed the air in the shelter. Elowynn looked at Korvel, but he didn't look surprised. Had he always known Veylspire contained more locked doors than public maps had shown?

She turned back to the engineer. “What is beneath them?”

Again, no one answered. The question seemed to move through the shelter and find every person, but all were unwilling to meet it.

Caelyn finally spoke before anyone else could. “I wish I knew.”

The words were rough from pain, but they carried clearly through the chamber.

Elowynn turned to him. He was staring at the dark tunnel on the left, the one that sloped downward beneath a broken arch.

His eyes were no longer fixed on the people in the room. They’d gone distant in the same way they had inside the transit gallery, as though his attention had been caught by something too far away for the rest of them to hear.

Fear and awareness prickled across Elowynn’s skin. Lifting a hand, she gently lay it along his cheek.

“What do you hear?” she whispered.

Caelyn swallowed once, turning into her palm and closing his eyes. He curled one of his hands into a fist, pressing it against his knee.

“Not hear,” he said. “I can’t hear it. But I know there are other ways out because—”

He stopped, cutting himself off.

The shelter grew so quiet. Caelyn opened his eyes to lock onto hers, and the dread in his gaze was not for himself.

“It feels like something is calling them,” he said. “And they're converging through every subterranean route in the city. But I can’t be sure.”

The words settled over the shelter like a shroud. No one argued, because every person in the room had already seen the same impossible thing.

The Starless were moving toward something deep beneath the city.

And with every passing bell, more of them were arriving.

Chapter Thirty-Two

“Many scholars devote their lives to searching for the truth. Few consider what happens when the truth begins searching for them."

— An Unknown Scholar

Caelyn didn't sleep.

Exhaustion had finally overpowered fear as the shelter eventually fell into a restless quiet. The children drifted off first before several of the injured followed shortly after. Lora had even surrendered eventually, her head laying on Alyra’s lap and curled beneath a borrowed blanket near the resonance well. The cluster of crystals were still tucked against her side.