Chapter 14: The Root Beneath the City

The tunnel narrowed until Siu-Bak’s shoulders brushed the walls on both sides. The air was thick with the smell of old concrete and something faintly sweet, like rotting fruit left too long in a cellar. He kept one hand on the chalk line, which ran along the wall like a thread of moonlight, and the other clamped over the grain in his pocket. It pulsed against his palm, warm and insistent, as if it...