Four hours climbing through a winding pitch darkness with only the green glow to see.

  No warm lanterns like Floor 2's ascent. No magnificent views like Floor 3's ladder. Just darkness, and Hakashi's green crystal lighting our way through the Pillar's belly. Raine walked silently ahead of me, so quietly that I kept checking to see if she was floating, while Nanda huffed and shuffled behind me.

  This is miserable, I told Fern.

  At least we're almost there.

  He was right, I could smell fresh air close to us.

  Hakashi stopped and dimmed his crystal. In the faint green glow, I could see exhaustion etched into his face—the same burnt-out expression from when he'd collected us.

  "Listen carefully," he said, voice flat. "The Guardians blocked this entrance for centuries. Whatever's up there can't be good. So remember what we do?”

  Raine spoke up. “Firebrand, we go in quietly, we observe, and we survive. That's the mission."

  “Ah yes, good Raine. Exactly. Now—”

  “Sir, if I may, this hardly seems to follow protocol at all. We should have waited with the other scouting squads, am I correct?” Raine asked.

  Hakashi lowered his eyes and frowned. “Raine, we are doing things the Hakashi way. Not whatever your book of Protocols says.”

  “The book is called the Cinder Expeditionary Handbook…”

  He waved her words away. “Just… Raine, please?”

  Raine’s eyes narrowed. “Yes… sir.”

  "Do you know what's up there?" I asked, leaning past Raine.

  "No one does. That's the problem." He rubbed his face. "The others are too fired up from killing the Guardians—they think we're invincible now. But there's always something worse. It always gets worse.” He looked at each of us. “Now, stay low, stay quiet. Questions?"

  "No, Firebrand," Raine said.

  Hakashi extinguished the crystal completely, and darkness swallowed us.

  In the black, Nanda grabbed my shoulder to keep our chain. When I reached for Raine, she flinched.

  “Just us, trying not to get lost,” I said with a half laugh.

  We continued climbing until a crack of light appeared ahead. The tunnel gradually brightened, and finally, an opening emerged. Hakashi motioned for us to crouch.

  Thick bushes with bright red leaves blocked the exit. Hakashi pulled out a thin knife and carefully cut branches without disturbing the whole bush. We crawled through on hands and knees into tall wheat with matching red tips.

  Hakashi rose slowly, then froze.

  "I... don't believe it."

  I stood despite his orders, and before me was a sight from dreams.

  An almost endless field of red-tipped wheat created a blood sea of grain washing out in nearly every direction out and against the towering inner white walls of the Floor. And rising in the center of the sea of red wheat, like a layered cake, standing several miles tall within the Pillar itself, was a structure that defied everything we knew about the Floors. It was a megacity. Seperated into five layers all held up by a thick central spire, thsousands of miles wide. It was like being shrunk into a snowglobe, and a giant city was trapped within the glass with you. The huge city unfurled layer over layer like a massive pinecone towering above us, past where the Fifth Floor’s ceiling should be. Hundreds of small buildings crammed together in the first tier of the city, the level we stood on. Looking above, I saw the misty spray of water falling off the edge, and noticed small fishing shacks hanging over the second-tier edge. Above that, clouds made looking into the third, fourth of fifth tear of the city impossible. It was grand; beyond comprehension for its size. It defied laws of physics, and it was alive. The sound of a civilization reached us over the waves of red wheat.

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  "What the hell is that?" Nanda gasped, standing beside me.

  Even Raine's composure cracked, her eyes widened and she shook as she pulled out her notebook and began sketching.

  I pushed my enhanced hearing outward. Through the wind and wheat, I heard it—a populous city. Voices, carts on stone, guards yelling, children crying. There were people, the city was alive, and yet, something about the sounds filled me with a sadness.

  "There's... people," Nanda whispered. I looked over at him and noticed him staring intently with his blue eyes at the first tier of the city. "A whole city, here on the Fifth Floor? How is this possible?”

  "It shouldn't be," Hakashi said. Then sharper: "Down!"

  We dropped into the wheat.

  “Someone’s coming.” Hakashi warned.

  "You're being paranoid," I scoffed, and raised my head.

  I looked down the nearest road, focusing my chimera senses on sight and sound. Through the wind, I caught it—footsteps on cobblestones. Three sets, plus... a child's patter.

  “Damn, he's right. Three adults and a child."

  “Why do you doubt? This is why I hate kids,” Hakashi sighed. "We wait until they pass.”

  When the footsteps faded, Hakashi rose slightly. I enhanced my vision, zooming in on the distant figures. They weren’t guards, and didn’t look violent, they were just simple people—a family carrying wheat baskets, wearing simple tan and red tunics.

  "They're just farmers," I said.

  "Doesn't matter. We're in unknown territory—a civilization locked away for centuries. We have no idea what any of them are capeable of or how they would react to us."

  "Firebrand," Raine said softly. "Behind us."

  We turned. Beyond the hill where we entered from, we spotted hundreds of people approaching—all heading on the road, toward the city. Toward us.

  “Shit, back to the tunnel," Hakashi ordered. "Now."

  We crawled back through the wheat, and made our way to the bushes when we were stopped.

  Three uniformed men stood at the tunnel entrance, one had picked up the freshly cut branches that Hakashi had left.

  "What do we have here?" one said, peering down the hole.

  Hakashi held up a hand for stillness. We were concealed, but barely.

  "Looks like another one of those tunnels that leads down," the left guard said.

  "Thought they sealed them all," said the right.

  Unlike the farmers, these men carried crescent swords. Real guards.

  Not good, Fern said.

  The left guard offered the man in the middle the freshly cut branches. "Boss, someone's been through here. He sniffed it. "Recently."

  Hakashi sighed, more annoyed than anything.

  The leader grabbed the branch. “Well, you know what to do. Alert the captain. We'll—"

  Hakashi moved.

  I'd never seen anyone move that fast in their human form. One moment, he was beside me; the next, he stood among three corpses, their throats cut so cleanly they hadn't even had time to scream. Dust settled around him, as he knelt down by the bodies.

  “Ugh! Why!” He said under his breath. Hakashi looked up, and I saw a tear rolling down his face.

  "Why do people always make me kill them?" he whispered.

  The question hung in the air as blood pooled around the men’s throats. Behind us, hundreds of farmers drew closer. Ahead, a mysterious city towered above. And at our feet, three dead men.

  Hakashi stood, wiping his small thin blade clean.

  "Help me hide the bodies into the hole,” he said, voice hollow. "Quickly. Before the farmers see."

  As we dragged the corpses into the underground, I “spoke up. Firebrand, why “are we keeping them in the hole?”

  “The others will come up this way. They will see the dead men and know to be prepared. We always leave clues for the Cinders that follow. He pulled the last body into the hole and crawled back up. He looked at the city. "This place…it has been hidden since before the Cinders existed. These guards, knew about the tunnels—they said they'd sealed others. Which means..."

  "Which means they know about the surface," Raine finished.

  "And they've been keeping the two worlds separate. On purpose." Hakashi's expression hardened. "The question is why. And whether they'll come looking when these three don't report back."

  The farmers were getting closer. We could hear their voices now, casual conversation about harvest yields and weather.

  Hakashi thought for a moment and then smiled. “You kids seem big enough to take care of yourselves right?” He eyes us up and down and then looked back at the three guards in the hole. “You seem big enough to fit into some uniforms too huh?”

  I looked at Raine and Nanda with suspicion, and Nanda leaned over to me. “What do you suppose he has in mind Brother?”

  I watched as Hakashi bent back down into the cave and began pulling off the guard’s jackets.

  “I think I have an idea where his head is at…”