After several minutes, a question floated to the front of Eluvie’s mind.

  “Why was I so intent on taking the trial?” she asked. “It sounds like I could have waited?”

  Amu sighed in frustration. “I don’t know,” he said. “Almost everyone tried to dissuade you. It seemed that you had a reason, but after 40 years of puzzling it over, I still don’t know. Whatever it was, I hope you achieved it.”

  "Twenty years," Eluvie said. "I was with Mirab for roughly twenty years, right?"

  "You were with the other Illrum before that," Amu said. "The wardens on the planet."

  Eluvie had more questions, but before she could ask any more, something blurred toward her from a distance, collided with her, and knocked her off her chair. She tried to rise, but that thing clamped two arms around her and held on with a steely grip while jabbering strange words at a terrifying speed.

  It took several terrifying seconds to realize that she had been attacked by a child, and that it was hugging her, not trying to kill her.

  Amu barked something that she couldn't understand and, in response, the child held on more resolutely.

  More of them appeared just as she made it to her feet. Some grabbed at her legs while others attempted to push past the early arrivals. They kept chattering in their strange language until her patience was at its end.

  Finally, her guards managed to pull them off her. Each guard held onto two or three children while Amu scolded them and their mortified male caretaker.

  The children ranged in apparent age from four to twelve years, with the oldest - a boy - being the only unrestrained one.

  "My apologies," their caretaker bobbed his head at Eluvie, "they are craftier than I expected, but that is no excuse. I will do better."

  "It's fine," Eluvie said, staring at the wide, unrepentant eyes.

  One of the children began to chatter again, but he trailed off at a scolding look from Amu.

  "Who are they?" Eluvie asked.

  "Your afternoon class," Amu said. "You teach them language and writing.

  "You said you would be back quickly," one of the children said. His voice was stilted, as if trying to sound out the words to an unfamiliar language. "I waited and waited."

  "I'm sorry," Eluvie said, not knowing how else to respond.

  The boy grinned, his face lighting up as he did so. "It's fine. You're back now."

  Eluvie's heart sank.

  Amu went down on one knee and gathered the children around him. For a while, he spoke to them in their language. Eluvie wondered if he was telling them about her failure, but their reaction suggested otherwise.

  After some time, he rose to his feet and addressed Eluvie. "We've made a deal," he said. "They will leave us alone in exchange for one hug per person and a promise to review one of their essays.

  "I - " Eluvie wanted to point out that she did not understand the language, but Amu gave her a look that said, ‘just accept it'.

  So, she did. The oldest refused a hug on the grounds that he was too old. That was funny, since they were all at least forty years old, but she compromised with a pat on the head.

  Amu scolded the caretaker once more, and then the children departed.

  With their departure, the group seemed significantly less lively. Eluvie felt an ache in her chest, even as she smiled and waved to the departing children. Previously, her failure had felt distant, like a tragedy belonging to someone else. Beyond Amu, she knew none of the people in this place and she barely liked those she'd met. But the knowledge that someone would miss her, that she was leaving a hole in lives she had not previously known of, that ached.

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  She ignored her chair — it was awkwardly placed anyway — and took to sitting with her back to the wall. Then, she had her umpteenth shock of the day. The wall opened up and swallowed her.

  Before she could understand what was happening, she was sliding down a slope. She slid only for a short while, then collided with a flat surface. By the time she recovered her senses, there was no indication of where she’d fallen. There was only red dirt behind her, and a tunnel in front.

  She began by feeling the dirt around her. She tried to dig through the dirt, to find a way back to where she had come from. But she couldn’t do more than dislodge a few pebbles. And she didn’t know which direction to dig in.

  The walls rattled a little, and then colored rocks began to protrude from the walls, each one a different color. They stopped on the surface of the wall, half in and half out, and began glowing. They filled the tunnel with overlapping spots of light. The effect was odd, but also oddly comforting.

  Go forward or remain here?

  Amu would be trying to reach her. She smiled, imagining his frustration at losing her.

  Go forward, she decided. Firstly, she had no desire to sit in the dirt. Secondly, she felt safe. Everything in this new place was unfamiliar, including the tunnel. But this was the first place where she felt safe, calm.

  She followed the tunnel for several minutes. It sloped gently downward and leftward, but otherwise, the journey was easy. The longer she walked, the more relaxed she felt. It was difficult to identify the source of her comfort. Everything about the tunnel: its slope, the lights, the temperature, even the smell…

  She paused.

  The tunnel had been cooler when she had first fallen into it. It had also been darker and had smelled more of dirt. Now it was the temperature of a hot day — stinging, but pleasant — and smelled of something green and leafy.

  She immediately wanted to turn back. Someone was luring her somewhere and whether it was a person, a ghost, or one of the strange entities she did not yet understand, she wanted to be away from it.

  What can it do to you there that it can’t do here? her mind asked.

  It was true. She had already been kidnapped and locked in an unfamiliar tunnel. If the perpetrator had ill intentions, it was too late for a weak human like her to avoid them. So, she continued walking but tried to remain alert.

  Eventually, the ground began to change. The change was slow at first. Patches of stone began to show among the dirt. Then, patches of something gold-colored began to show among the stone. Then, there was no more dirt. Gold and stone mingled to form a leaf-like pattern with the gold as the leaf and stone as the veins.

  The changes made her extremely uneasy. She knew only one thing with that golden color. Once again, she had to decide whether to keep going or turn around. There had been no coercion, so far, no signs of danger.

  She decided to confirm her suspicions first.

  She bent onto one knee and felt the golden substance beneath her. It felt as strong as the stone, but it was also warm — as warm as a living body.

  "Who are you?" she asked.

  No one replied.

  The golden substance was clearly an Illrum's body, but she could not explain its purpose in the tunnel. And how could the Illrum not notice that she was walking on it? Perhaps it was a dead Illrum? She dismissed the idea at once. The bodies she'd seen previously had been brown.

  "Should I turn around?" she asked.

  There was still no response. After a while, she shrugged and continued the journey. Whatever was going on, presumably it was as it should be.

  The end of the tunnel appeared soon after that. The tunnel's wall transformed from gold and stone into what felt like clay blocks. Each block was a slightly different shade of blue, giving the wall an uneven appearance like the walls of a brick house. The floor, however, was a uniform gray. The effect was soothing, despite the tunnel's odd warmth.

  An archway ended the tunnel and led into a sitting room.

  The room was spacious, with only a smattering of furniture and ample walk space between them. There was one divan, two wooden chairs set across from a card table, a pair of armchairs sitting in one corner, and one soft-looking mattress on a wooden platform. There were no windows, but sparse furnishings and a domed ceiling were enough to stave off claustrophobia.

  She strained her brain, but could not manufacture a single satisfactory explanation for such a room below ground. She considered the possibility of a secret prisoner, a secret hideout, or even a non-secret hideout. But none of the explanations seemed adequate.

  There was something distinct on the card table, so she approached it. Each step that she took left distinct footprints in the dust on the floor. She did not know how long it took for so much dust to accumulate, but she knew that it required more than a year.

  The chairs around the card table were similarly dusty, but the item on the table was not. It was two sheets of paper with the top one bearing only two sentences:

  "For Eluvie, If You Fail. From Yourself."