PART 2: PAWNS IN A GAME
CHAPTER 12: THE INFILTRATOR
27th of Quintember, Year 3378, Third Age
Twilight, Nightfall
Palace dungeons, the Graves
So far, so good.
The evening had fallen swiftly over Nightfall. That was her favourite time of day. She had entered the Palace from a more familiar route, and slipped into its old catacombs. She was familiar with many of the Palace's nooks and crannies, and knew which passages were least likely to be crowded.
Her shadows cloaked her comfortably. It was like a reassuring blanket.
The Graves weren't so much a dungeon as they were various cells and containment rooms carved out of the Palace's catacombs. They varied in size, luminosity and dampness, and until Zant's new reign, had been largely unused, save to hold the worst scum Twilight had to offer.
Midna had never liked the feel of the Graves. She reserved those cells for life-sentences: serial murderers, serial rapists, psychopaths, sadists… Essentially, if they were beyond saving, they went to an early Grave. She hadn't liked seeing them in court. She was a cynical woman by nature, but the unfeeling depths of the people she'd sent here still made her uneasy. Passion and rage, she understood to a point. The ones who ended up in the Graves were beyond crimes of passion. They were cold and calculating and self-serving. Some were even sent as a preventative measure. She didn't feel that bad about keeping them away from her people, though the moral and ethical struggle had often kept her up late at night.
In the end, she had chosen to rule with an iron grip. If they were reasonably perceived as an incurable threat, they were locked away. She had a good team lined up to sort them out. None of those who made it to her court for judgement had openly wept. They wanted to charm her out of her decision. She was always suspicious of that, and into the Graves they went.
Now, though, as she walked the winding, low-ceilinged halls of the catacombs, she began to wonder. Quite a few had died there. Some of old age, some of self-inflicted wounds. They'd offer medical care to those who asked for it, but many had asked to commit suicide. And she'd let them.
That, again, was an ethical dilemma she didn't like. Some families of victims had been outraged. They wanted the prisoners to suffer, not get an easy escape. Midna avoided the debate. She didn't want to punish, she told them. She wanted to contain. It was a distinction she had never wanted to budge on. No self-respecting queen wanted to cross the line into cruelty and torture, no matter who was the victim.
Eerie sounds echoed around her. She heard shuffling in the cells, and nearly jumped out of her skin once when a face had peered between the bars on its door. Scrawny, dirty, and affected with a skin condition that looked like mould, its eyes had followed her, unsettlingly, despite her cloak of shadows.
Shaking the uneasiness off, Midna focused on finding her way. She hadn't often visited the Graves, but she knew where she would find Dark's cell.
They filled the Graves from top to bottom. The ones closest to the ground floor were now filled with aging, wailing old men, condemned at a time before Midna's own predecessor. They had spent some three lifetimes there, howling, screaming at the bars, without much possibility for escape. They were crazed. They were angry. Some of those cells had been emptied years ago after a death, but some dangerous Twili still remained, sparsely, cursing and howling like animals. It had made Midna's skin crawl, but a Grave sentence was for life, and she wasn't going to undo the actions of her foremothers and forefathers. Besides, if they had been innocent when they went in, their new insanity assured they certainly weren't anymore.
She didn't like thinking about that either.
As she went further down, through a series of winding steps carved out of stone oozing with cold drops of water and slick moss, the caged lights overhead flickering and green-white, casting a sickly colour to the hallways, the cell inhabitants were getting passably younger ―if wrinkled and pale nonetheless― and quieter.
She had decided the silence was even more unsettling than the manic screaming. At least the screaming ones made their presence known. Here, she'd walk down hallways filled with ragged, breathing corpses, whose eyes stared unseeing, or who muttered under their breath. That was where a sudden face had startled her. She had hastened further down after that.
The reasoning for putting the newer arrivals further down was specifically to make new prisoners squirm as they passed by the hundreds of others that had been there for most of their life. It wasn't her idea. It had just always been that way.
Then, she reached the lowest floors. These places were damp, and water pooled in puddles here. She had to dodge those to stay hidden. Here, the prisoners were all new arrivals. She counted over fifty that she had never seen in court, who looked for all intents and purposes miserable, but not insane. Young women coughed, and some were talking in low voices. There were no guards here. The cell doors were sturdy and reinforced and expanded from humidity to fill the doorjamb too snugly. Besides, the guard detail from the Palace was a mere minute running from them. She heard a man telling a story about his son, and a few others laughed a low, sad, chilled laugh, the sort of laugh that comes from forgetting that despair surrounded them, and remembering mid-breath.
She moved slower here. She wanted to get a good look at their faces. A part of her wanted to find their cell keys, and free them.
But she was here for Dark. She wouldn't succeed without Dark's help. He was too important to her.
Maybe on the way out, though.
Nodding once to herself, Midna checked for the umpteenth time that her shadows were still there. Her hands still shimmered without issue. It was an exhausting trick, and often she had to pause, just to take a long, silent breath to recuperate, her mouth open, her chin up, to make as little sound as possible.
There was a woman crying in the cell to her right. A little girl sat next to her, silent and staring listlessly at the floor.
Midna's eyes steeled. Yes, she'd return. These people were innocent of any wrongdoing. They had probably simply opposed Zant.
If that was a crime, then she was the worst criminal of all.
There was a sudden scream of agony that echoed through the whole hallway, coming from the level just below. It was a scream of agonizing pain and rage. It startled her. Every prisoner in the row went silent, and the little girl next to her suddenly let out a faint sob, eyes watering, lower lip quivering.
Midna's own heart felt like it was about to burst.
That voice. Dark.
She began to run.
There were startled exclamations coming from the cells as she passed them. The splashes she wasn't concealing anymore were alerting them, and they lined up against the bars in their doors, eyes wide, confused.
Midna felt the shadows strain to cover her. Her heart was pounding so fast it was unsettling the calm of her Magic. She wasn't sure whether they spotted her, but she suspected it wouldn't matter if she didn't hurry.
Dark. Dark. Dark. His name repeated like a mantra in her mind, and her lips even formed the word as she scrambled down the stairs.
When she got to the landing, she paused, and let the shadows cloak her again. That was a strain she didn't expect. He screamed again, with a near hiccup in the sound, like he was choking on unimaginable pain. She was close now.
There was a stream of words coming from a brightly illuminated cell here. There wasn't anyone else on this floor. And she knew the voice she heard.
"… Come, Ensign, where did you leave her?"
Zant. Midna barely registered surprise at the bile that surged at the realisation that Zant Grim the Mad was in that cell, torturing Dark.
There was a grunt, and a sudden keening sound, like Dark was once again being prodded and hurt.
Dark! Dark.
Shadows, she thought to herself, one last gift of your nature. I am a Twili, daughter of Fire and Shadow Magics. Shadow, grant me your illusions, and Fire, lend me your rage.
She didn't have to speak the words. She felt herself burning up, and let the shadows cloak her warmly.
"Ensign?"
"Rot in the accursed realm." Dark said this with feeling, his anger flaring.
She stepped forward and looked into the cell. It was brightly lit with the same caged greenish lights. Next to the door, there were metal rods or various shapes. They were caked with rust and black crusts that were probably blood. She picked one up nonetheless.
Dark was heaving dryly, his breath coming fast with agony. He was chained to the floor, hands bound, and he looked awful. His clothes were muddied with water and silt and blood. His hair clung to his face in matted, bloody tendrils. Blood dripped from his chin. It oozed from his left eye.
It was swollen shut, but there was so much blood caked on his left cheek that Midna suspected Zant had severely injured his left eye. Popped it, perhaps. She tried not to feel nauseous.
There were many other lesions on his body: lashes on his back, and sores on his hands. Burn marks, maybe. His knees were scraped and exposed, bloodied where they had rubbed and dragged on the wet stone floor. Oddly, the Water in him was raging like a storm, untapped but ready to burst. She had never seen Magic that strong in her life. How could Dark be unaware?
Zant, for his part, stood, proud and magnificent, in his finest clothing, in front of him. He had an iron poker in his good hand. The tip of it was grimy with blood. The other hand was invisible under the folds of his large sleeve. Maybe this was vengeance?
Rage burned in her. It threatened to melt the shadows away.
Let them burn, she furiously thought. Let them burn everything.
Rage.
Dark… Dark…
"I thought you weren't the kind to get your hands dirty," Midna said, her voice cracking from misuse.
Zant whirled around, his poker nearly hitting her. She was just out of range, and tried not to flinch, but her own metal pike came up instinctively, and the two pokers clashed with a clang.
"Midna," Zant breathed, dark fury filling his tone. He couldn't quite pinpoint her, the shadows still covering her.
"Midna…" Dark wheezed, his voice broken, "leave. Don't―"
"Silence!" Zant wheeled around enough to strike Dark again sharply. Dark spat out blood he nearly coughed on. Midna was pleased to see he was aiming for Zant's boots. He still had spirit.
"I was just asking your lover where you were," Zant said, his tone high and sweet and ugly.
"You found me." With relief, she let the shadows fall away, and stood before him.
Fire, burn in me. Give me your strength.
"I have so many things I wish I could do to you," Zant said, still sweet and high and manic. "I've already had your friends and family slowly weeded out. Did you know it was me?"
"I did," she breathed, and thought to herself that if he wanted to build up her fury, she would let him.
"And look at his hands," Zant said, stepping aside just enough for her to get another good look at Dark. It broke her heart. "My handiwork." He snapped his fingers and a bright flame erupted there, vanishing into thin air almost instantly, like a spark. He peered at her with sadistic interest. "But I see now, you already know some tricks."
"Pyr," she whispered, and Fire Magic manifested, strong and volatile and hungry. It swept towards Zant, who hand to sweep it aside with a word.
His yellow eyes met hers, and narrowed. "I'll kill him now, Midna Black. And then you will surrender your kingdom to me in front of the nation."
Fire. Forge me a blade worthy of my fury.
It came at a cost. She felt a dizziness she chose to attribute to her anger. She held up the pike. It warmed to the touch. Burning in her hand, she felt a sword of flame and molten metal.
"You think molten metal can harm me?" Zant laughed. "Cold metal is far less malleable."
But she was cold and focused. Cold and tempered and furious. The flame on her sword grew. She fed it all the anger she knew.
"I will reduce you to ashes," she swore, and lunged.
Zant stepped back and parried, locking his poker with hers. She howled in fury.
Reach, Fire. He is fuel. He would burn so well.
The fire from her weapon jumped to his, and heated it up as it went. Zant watched in growing horror as the flames hungrily came down towards his hand. He dropped the poker, and twisted out of her sudden lunge, skipping agilely out of the cell. She cried out and threw her arm out again, but he was out of her reach.
"You will not win, Midna."
Then, with a cold, manic smile, Zant Grim evaporated into the shadows, and vanished.
She stood, fire pike at the ready, for several more seconds. No further attack came. She dropped her weapon, which stopped blazing before it even hit the ground, and turned to Dark, kneeling in front of him.
Her hands found his face, gently lifting it. Now that she could get a better look at him, she saw his eye was, indeed, completely gouged. He had many lesions on his face, grossly cut, with what looked like a black eye in the other eye. It looked like Zant had toyed with him as torture, and she had prevented him from following through in more gruesome ways.
Dark's whole body shivered with adrenaline and shock. His intact reddish brown eye met hers, wild and unfocused, the white of his eyes red with burst veins.
"You didn't run," he gasped, his voice croaking.
"Neither did you," she breathed, and felt tears well up. He hadn't betrayed her.
"You… you came back. Din, Farore and Nayru, skies, seas and sands, I think I love you, Midna Black," he breathed in relief, worn out. She had trouble deciding if that was the relief talking or more, and decided it didn't particularly matter. He shut his good eye and let his forehead fall forward, exhaustion setting in.
"We have to leave."
"I was just getting comfortable," he sarcastically whined, and she found herself smiling.
"There are plenty of other prisoners to rescue."
"No," Dark suddenly gasped. He raised his head again, and looked at her as insistently as he could with just one valid eye, the other dark purple and hideous. "Zant wants to take the Sols to Ganondorf Dragmire."
She paused. "What? Both?"
"Both," Dark nodded, breathless. "Said he had a gift to offer him. Said he's preparing a golem. Something like that, I think. Didn't quite get the whole thing. He was just raving. Or bragging, maybe. I don't know. But Ganondorf has his own golem, I think. They need one Sol each."
Then, Midna knew. Gohma. The golem was a huge spider that had once been alive, that the Sheikah of her ancestry had altered with metal and shadow. It wasn't alive anymore, but it could be controlled and powered with a Sol. It had once been a powerful tool of war, destructive in its force. In time, they hadn't needed the weapon anymore, and its Sol had been used instead to power the city at its core.
Hospitals and communications and water treatment and food storage and transport all depended, at least partially, on the Core's power grid. It had a backup system, but it was old and hadn't been used in many decades, and, Midna remembered in a rush, it had a few minutes of lag between primary power loss and secondary take-over.
She realised that three minutes would be enough to seriously hurt those in critical conditions in hospitals, or cause signalling conflicts for automated transport. She thought of swift tube transport, and knew it would not be able to handle a large-scale outage. She thought of the people working in the deeper city sewers on powered oxygen lines. She thought of freighters relying on power to plot their route, and what would happen if they careened out of control. She thought of the airships coming in from all directions and being unable to speak to the control on the ground for coordination. She thought of the cries for help from those who would suddenly be trapped in electromagnetic elevators that would drop back to the ground if their brakes were faulty…
Three minutes of raw, deadly chaos.
"He's insane," she breathed.
"I agree," Dark said, and he would have eyed her with irony if he'd had the energy. "Let's stop him."
"We still need to release these people. They are innocent. The floor of Graves just above this one is full of entirely innocent prisoners."
Dark jiggled the chains holding him kneeling on the ground, tired. Oh. Right. Midna scowled in thought, then reached for the poker Zant had dropped, and lodged it firmly between the floor and the metal clasp bolted to the stone, then pushed down on it with her feet, trying to pry it out of the ground. It came loose after a lot of effort, and his feet were finally free. He fell back to sit, stretching his legs with a dolorous groan.
She took his burned hands ― and tried not to feel guilt for his pain: it wasn't her doing, it was Zant's ― and said, "I'm going to melt these chains. I need you to do me a favour."
"What? How?" He nearly jolted away, but the shackles were chained to the floor and he couldn't move back very far.
"You have Water, Dark. It's welling up like crazy." Sands only knew why... "You can use Water Magic if you try."
"How would you know?" Dark hissed angrily.
"I saw it in you when I was dousing for the Sol, back in the Samasa desert. I know you have this, Dark. Trust me."
"I don't know how to use Magic, Midna."
"You don't have a choice. I need you to use Water to keep your skin cool and protected while I melt these shackles. Help me help you, Dark."
"You're crazy―"
"Dark. Shut up and focus. The Water word is 'ag'."
Amazingly, he did fall silent. She could tell he was willing. He was tense and shaking, and she reached out to soothe him. He relaxed, and his lips formed the word, and water almost immediately rose from the wet floor, and wrapped on his skin, under the metal shackles, and ran up and down the length of his arms like rivulets defying gravity.
Midna was amazed at the speed with which he found his strength. She wondered why the essence of Water had gotten so strong while both Fire and Shadow remained poor and weak.
"That's… incredible," he said, holding his breath. "Hurry up before it stops."
She did. The Fire Magic welled up in her again, and she realised then how much her use of Magic had tired her. This was an effort.
But the shackles started to burn red. The water on Dark's arms began to evaporate with a hiss, but he tensed and willed more onto his skin. Midna pressed on. The metal began to glow brighter and brighter, until it became orange, and then yellow, and started to lose its shape. It began to drip to the floor, making the water puddles hiss. Midna dared a glance at Dark's face. Beside his absent eye, he was focused and still and awed all at once.
The shackles fell away from Dark. She willed the Fire away from his skin. The burning, molten metal fell to the floor, where it almost immediately started to cool again. Free at last, Dark watched it sizzle, amazed. Then, he looked up at her. She stood, and reached a hand out to him to help him up.
He just stared.
"We used Magic," he breathed.
She laughed. It sounded odd in the Grave. "Now do you believe?"
"You made me do Magic." He was still stunned. She sighed.
"Yes, Dark. Come on. Time is short."
He stood on his own, though he wavered a little, dizzy after being so long on his knees. He looked at her intently with his only eye, and she made to walk out.
He latched onto her wrist. She paused and turned to look at him. He was wincing. The burns on his hands had hurt, evidently, when he'd grabbed her.
"Dark?"
He was a mess. On top of his gouged eye, he was covered in blood, his clothes were grimy, and he had burns and cuts nearly everywhere. His pants' knees had worn through, and his knees were bloody too. But when he suddenly smiled, bittersweet, she thought it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. He was alive.
He stepped closer, his one functional eye sharp and aware.
"I should have done this the first day I met you." He reached with an index that hadn't been too badly burnt, and ran it against her cheek, and under her chin.
And he kissed her. It was quick. He was aware of his state, and probably didn't want to worsen the situation. Then, stepping aside, as though to dodge any outrage from her, he walked out of the cell and said, "Well, we have a nation to rescue."
Stunned, she took a split-second to recover. Then, deciding she'd have time later to sort all of it out, she followed him.
This time, the hallway of prisoners was loud. They exclaimed in shock when they saw her, struggling to peer at her and Dark through the bars on their doors. She was running tired, though, and wasn't sure how to open the cells without Magic.
"I want to let you out. We have to be quick and silent," she called, hoping that the single raised voice would suffice.
The prisoners in the Graves fell silent.
"The keys are hanging on the wall over there," a man suddenly said, seeing her unspoken wish. She looked up at him. He was a Twili, though his skin tone bordered on Hylian peach. He was probably a mix.
"Thank you…?"
"Mond, your highness."
"Mond. Yes." She hurried to the keys. They hung from a hook on the far wall, and she tried a few before finding the right key. Time was pressing, and she had some fifty cells to open. An initial assessment assumed that most cells had single occupants, but a few had mothers and children together. All in all, perhaps sixty people.
"Dark," she said, forcing the key to turn in a rusty mechanism, "keep your ears open for any guards. Zant will have alerted them."
Dark was nursing his burnt hands and cupping his injured eye, but the eye that still opened was steely and focused amid the swelling. He nodded curtly and strode to the rising stairwell at the end of the hallway, leaning against the wall for support.
"Your highness," Mond said when she sprung him out, "what is your plan?"
"To be honest," Midna said, as people softly exclaimed with relief and gratitude, their cell doors opening one by one, "I have none. We'll have to fight our way out, but I'm sure you prefer that to the alternative."
Mond glanced into the Grave he had just vacated, and blanched, and nodded.
"Yes, but… after that?"
Midna looked up, confused. She saw Mond ― tall, thin, very Twili-like in his stature and posture, but with some indubitably Hylian traits― and the mass of all-Twili folk massing quietly behind him, mothers holding their children close, men standing nearby and ready to fight, and she asked, "What do you mean, after?"
"Well, how do you plan on retaking the throne? If it pleases you," he added, humbly, bowing as though remembering her rank.
Midna's throat felt tight. Her hands shook as she continued to open the cell doors. "I appreciate the sentiment, I assure you. But right now, my priority is to get you all out, then stop Zant from stealing the Sol from the city Core."
There was a murmur of confusion in the group of prisoners. Midna opened the final lock, and a last Twili man walked out, awed. Then, with a deep breath, she added, "If you think you can make it out without my help, that would really speed up my escape."
"Of course," Mond said. He turned to the others, and said, "Keep the children in the middle of the pack. We leave no one behind. This is a chance we will not get again."
As the new de facto leader, Mond was doing a decent job. Midna wondered whether he'd once been a soldier, or maybe an employer of some sort. She wondered what they had all done to deserve imprisonment. Then, she decided it didn't matter. Rushing through the group again ― it parted to let her pass ― she joined Dark. He was frowning, though she couldn't say if it was with pain or concern. Just looking at his gouged eye made her sick to the stomach.
"Not a sound," Dark said, peering into the greenish darkness of the stairwell. "I don't like that any more than a swarm of attackers."
"We don't have a choice," she said. "Up is the only way out."
"Or we could use the sewers," a young voice said. Midna turned to the little Twili girl. She was grimy, and her feet were full of wet sores, but her eyes were dry for once. She was crying in the Grave when she'd passed through the first time.
"The sewers," Midna echoed dumbly, wondering whether the thought had any merit at all. Her instinct was dismissal.
"She might be right," Mond said. "For this much water to accumulate in here, we have to be close to the sewer system. The city's soil doesn't naturally contain water, after all." Midna was silent, thinking. Mond added, "I was a city planner before. There is definitely a drain for all this water somewhere, but I think it's higher up. It's just accumulating and stagnating here. We have to go up to where the water starts draining away, and we'll have reached sewer-level."
"I don't know the sewers' layout. It might take some precious time to leave it."
"I know the system," the girl said, speaking up again. She blushed and shied away when all the eyes turned to her.
Embarrassed, her mother said, "We used the system to steal food. It pans the whole city, and no one thinks someone would use it to escape."
"Well," Midna said, thinking quickly, "if you can get us all out of here unnoticed, I won't begrudge you that."
"Did you even see a drain on the way down?" Dark asked.
"I did, when they brought me here," a man said. A few others nodded in agreement. "It's barred, but the bars looked rusty."
"Have we come to this? For my people to notice sewer entrances?" Midna had trouble believing it.
There was nervous laughter in the group, and many shifted their weight awkwardly.
Well.
"It's a sound way to get around unseen," Mond explained, by way of apology. "The resistance has been using it for a while now."
"Resistance?"
Mond smiled. "Why else would we be prisoners here?"
Midna looked at them all with renewed appreciation. "How did I not know?"
"We couldn't reach you to tell you," Mond said. "You were out of country."
She steeled herself and said, coolly, "I don't intend to be ousted again."
"Your highness," Mond said insistently, "claim your throne. It is yours, rightfully. Democracy be damned."
"One thing at a time. First, we need to get to the Core." She looked at the little girl. "What is your name?"
"Edna. Your highness." The girl was wide eyed, like she couldn't believe she was speaking to a princess.
"Edna, have you been to the city Core?"
The girl nodded slowly, anxiously. With one glance at Dark, who stood solemn and silent, Midna kneeled before the girl, and said, "If you can take me there by the fastest way you know, Edna, you will save many lives."
Edna nodded. She took her mother's hand, and tugged. Dark stepped aside to let them pass up the stairs. Then, with a glance at Midna, he nodded curtly, and set out after them. Midna hurried behind, nursing her energy. She'd have cloaked them all in shadow if her strength had allowed it.
A resistance movement. It was uncommonly flattering. But something about Mond's statement had bothered her.
Democracy be damned? Really? She was beginning to think that the people might know more about self-reliance and justice than she'd originally given them credit for. Perhaps they might benefit from a proper form of elected government…
They reached a landing, and rushed through the hallway, in front of many Graves. Prisoners rushed against the bars and pleaded and begged and cried for freedom, but Midna ushered the group through heedlessly. These were not political prisoners. She knew their faces and their crimes. They would stay.
Another landing, and already the water became sparse.
"This way," the men said, ignoring more prisoners rushing against their cell doors to plead for release. The drain to the sewers was just above waist height, but from peering through the rusting grate, there was far more space beyond. It fell a few feet down, and joined a moderately high main drain.
"We just need to pry the grate loose," the men agreed, and began to pull. The metal groaned loudly, and some mortar fell, but the grate hardly budged.
"We need more hands!"
Midna stepped aside, and joined Dark as he nursed his burns. She noticed he was coiling a few drops of water and spraying his hands to cool them. It looked like a serious effort, but he was practicing.
"Midna," he said, softly. "What will you do when you reach the Core?"
She was starting to get irritated with the same question. "I don't know. Defend the Sol, I suppose."
"Forever?"
"If I could get the people to see Zant's treachery, it wouldn't have to be forever."
Dark didn't add anything to that. He sighed. "I never used to look at the bigger picture. My next meal was all that mattered. Now…" He watched as the men pulled and progressed on the grate. It was loose on the bottom now, and was coming loose on the left side. They pushed, then pulled, then pushed again, like they were trying to root out a stubborn tooth. "Now, I want to think there is a future where I fit in."
She wanted to ask what that had to do with the city Core, but she thought it would be unkind. Dark had changed from the torture. He was detached. Soft. She didn't like that. Maybe he was more broken than she thought.
"What do you see for yourself?" She asked, figuring there would be time later to offer him help.
Dark smiled sadly, and he even laughed. He sounded like his old self when he laughed. It was sombre and ironic. Midna decided she liked that even less. "You know, that's just the thing. I don't see a future at all. I've never wanted something more than that, and I just don't see it."
"That doesn't mean it doesn't exist," Midna said as the grate suddenly tore out of the wall with the loudest groan in the world. It echoed up and down the hallway, and she whirled around to face the prison guards that would surely have been called down by now.
But the stairwell at the opposite end of the hallway was still deserted. They'd lingered there more than long enough for guards to have reached them ten times already.
"Why aren't they coming?"
Mond looked up for the cheering men who were now slithering down into the sewer drain. He said, "They're waiting at the top for us to charge out. They figure there is no other way out but up. They'll be disappointed."
Midna was relieved, then made a mental note to change guard protocol in the Graves if she ever became queen after all.
"We have to hurry," Edna said, peering at her and motioning to the exit.
Oddly charmed, Midna smiled toothily. "You're right. Lead the way."
