Page 162 of The Last Remaining Light

Elowynn turned on him. “You know this?”

“I suspected.”

“Korvel,” she said scathingly.

His eyes met hers, and for once he didn't hide behind charm. “The Council maintains partial records of sealed substructures beneath Veylspire. Partial, incomplete. They are often contradictory.”

Well, that didn't surprise her.

Entire centuries of history had vanished from official records as though someone had taken a knife to the past and carved important bits out. The deeper she’d begun to venture into the archives, the more she discovered that history in Veylspire had been curated as carefully as it had been preserved.

“Most are treated as relics. Construction concerns. Institutional superstition that no one wants to fund properly. Until tonight, I had no reason to believe they were important to our survival,” Korvel continued.

Caelyn’s expression became steel. “And now?”

Korvel looked toward the dark tunnel. “Now I think they may be the only reason anyone built survival routes this deep in the first place.”

The engineer closed his eyes beside Korvel. Elowynn noticed.

“What?” she asked. “What is wrong?”

Everyone followed her gaze and stared at him.

The engineer rubbed his hands together, leaving streaks of soot across his palms. “There are old markings in some of the lower service maps. Not roads, exactly. Uh, not current lines either. My predecessor called them ‘pilgrim cuts’, because they all sloped down toward the same foundation ring.”

“Pilgrim cuts?” Lora repeated, her voice thin. “What in bloody hell are those?”

“Paths,” Alyra murmured. “Toward something people once considered sacred.”

Korvel’s gaze moved toward Caelyn. “Or somewhere they believe will save them.”

Elowynn thought of the Starless child placing the doll in Caelyn’s hand. She thought of clouded eyes, of bodies moving aside, of the strange reverence in the abandoned transit gallery.

She thought of what Caelyn had said as he stared into the dark tunnel: something was calling them home.

Home.

The word had once meant Lumenshire to her. Sea wind and bells. Agatha’s dry voice. Caelyn waiting beside the cliffs with his hands shoved into his pockets, pretending he had not been looking for her. The thought that something beneath Veylspire might be using that same shape of longing to call the Starless made her stomach turn.

“What happens if we stay?” she asked.

Korvel was the one who answered.

“The outer exit is sealed. The main shelters are either full or under containment. The upper districts are failing, and the Vigil Orders will eventually sweep the lower routes. If they find him—” His gaze flicked to Caelyn, then back to Elowynn. “If they find all of us with him, our choices narrow considerably.”

Caelyn’s hand withdrew from hers, and Elowynn caught it before he could move away completely.

“No,” she said to him under her breath.

His eyes lifted to her, pain and grief warring in his gaze.

“You do not get to decide that you are a danger and remove yourself from the equation. I can feel you thinking it. So, stop it,” she demanded.

Despite everything, Lora made a soft sound that might have become a laugh in another life.

Caelyn stared at her before letting out a long sigh. His fingers curled around hers, holding on.

“I do not want you near this,” he said in a broken whisper.