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The soldiers tied our hands in front of us, walked us through Margarite’s Modern Ladies, Seamstress Extraordinaire, over the wooden debris and into the storage room, where the trapdoor lay open and waiting.

I moved to the whim of the soldiers as if through a nightmare. My legs not my own, the gut-wrenching shouts of Gunner ringing out from the square. They grew weak quickly, and I imagined pints of blood slipping free, drawing the life from him.

Before I was lowered into the pit, the shouts ceased.

Patrick and I stood before the shaft and its pulleys to the tunnel we’d built together.

We were not lowered immediately. Before the soldiers could begin operating the pulleys, they were interrupted by feet staggering down the path. Three men came into view.

Two were soldiers, and between them was Theo, his face badly battered. His head lolled on his shoulders, unconscious.

“Found the water Charmer,” one of the soldiers said. The rest of the navy blues cheered, slapped their comrades’ backs as Theo was dumped into the shaft. “Let’s see what his father has to say about that stunt, eh?”

The shaft lift sank down its fathoms, its joints clanking, metal screeching.

And as darkness fell, I couldn’t see Patrick. But I could feel him beside me, his shoulder pressed to mine. I let it soothe me.

We’ll find a way out , I thought. I’ll find us a way out.

“Patrick,” I said, not caring who heard me. But no answer followed.

Instead, I felt him shift suddenly. I felt the entire breadth of his weight shove me into the wall of the shaft. I felt his forearm push into the column of my throat.

The space filled with the shouts of men. I heard them scramble in the dark, trying to make sense of the movement, grasping blindly at Patrick’s back.

I felt my eyes water and could hear my own blood pounding in my ears.

And his lips were at my ear. His speech was strangled, but I heard it clearly. “If there was ever a small part of you that loved me,” he said. “Then you will sink this tunnel. Bury us all.”

And then he was gone, pulled away by the soldiers at his back.

Oxygen rushed back into my lungs.

“Someone tie him up!”

The shaft clanked interminably downward.

There was a sharp thwack as a soldier struck Patrick with a baton.

And somewhere beneath us, cycling up the shaft, a canary sang.