The early morning was growing to become Zuko's favourite time of day. He woke at first light and was up by dawn, while the others slept in. He'd been tempted to tweak their collective nose by waking them with fireball practice, but if he let them sleep in, he had an entire hour all to himself. It wasn't, he told himself, that he couldn't deal with them; it was that it was nice having some downtime. He missed his ship, where he could spend all day repeating kata and only have to exchange a few words with his uncle or anyone else.

Speaking of which, we should have asked Uncle to teach us lightning direction when we were last at Izumihanto.

Are we good enough to try it? We haven't even mastered all the basic forms. And Father mentioned that idiots tended to blow themselves up with lightning. He didn't name names, but he really didn't have to.

We're the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation. Lightning is practically the royal family's signature move. We should at least have asked for prep exercises. Who knows how long until we'll get another chance?

He sat cross-legged, maintaining six small fires in the leaf litter. They'd been flying over forested hills; the Gaang was asleep in a small ravine a little away, the idea being that it might be a bit harder to spot. Zuko kept his fires clean-burning without smoke. Not that smoke would draw too much attention from any Fire Nation patrols, but still.

Uncle would probably say we should ask Katara.

She might know a lot about waterbending, and maybe that extends to bending in general, but lightning direction is a firebending move. There's no waterbending analogue.

Maybe we should focus on martial arts? Especially here in the Earth Kingdom. General Fong will have told his side that the Avatar's travelling with a firebender, but maybe we can pretend it was someone else who left and I'm a nonbender only who joined later?

If their army is staffed entirely by five-year-old children, that could work perfectly. Failing that, maybe there's lots of lead in their drinking water.

Would either of those be a surprise?

Not really.

Then we'll hold these fires for another hundred breaths and do some martial kata. We could use some more practice at those. We meditate all day on that bison, we need to be getting more exercise.

There was a BANG from the campsite. Zuko sprinted back downhill.

A Fire Nation squad had got the drop on the Gaang. One held a vicious-looking polearm at Katara, who was tangled in her bedroll and looked three quarters asleep, and another soldier had a bow and arrow trained on Sokka, who lay dazed in the dirt, having been almost blown up by a grenade. Aang was bouncing between three more, moving too fast for any to get a bead on him. Only one of those three was in proper uniform, shooting a flurry of fire fists at him; the others, variously in custom armour or shirtless, were throwing more grenades or swinging a chain and ball. Appa danced nervously at the periphery, too afraid of the fire and explosions to help.

Zuko caught the spearman's elbow from behind, kicked him in the throat, and shoved him into the archer, knocking both down. In the same time, Aang had managed to scatter his three with deft airbending.

"Go go go!" Zuko shouted, grabbing Sokka and then Katara by their midsections and tossing them onto Appa's back.

Aang air-blasted the soldiers back again, then leaped onto Appa's back. "Yip yip!"

Aang vectored up and sideways, rising over the sheer cliff face and losing the soldiers.

"HEY!" Sokka yelled, standing up. "WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?"

Katara winced, rubbing her head. "Sokka, keep it down!"

"WE COULD'VE TAKEN THOSE GUYS!" Sokka shouted, ignoring her.

Zuko caught Katara's eye, tapped his ear, and nodded to Sokka. She followed his gaze and caught his meaning. She motioned Sokka to sit, then bent a stream of healing water against his ears.

"The bender had red-bordered armour," Zuko said. "That means a field officer, which means he has at least a division nearby."

"You realise that nobody except you knows Fire Nation military jargon, right?" Katara asked.

Zuko rolled his eyes at her. "It means there's way more nearby. We've got to get to the tunnel."

Sokka, whose hearing had mostly returned, said, "About that. I was thinking. Do we actually? They already know we're back and it doesn't take a genius to guess where we're going. Getting boxed into a tunnel doesn't sound like a good strategy."

"I, um," Katara said. "Wouldn't mind flying."

Zuko's eyes fixed on hers, but she looked away.

She was buried alive not so long ago. We didn't want to go underground after we were, either.

We weren't running from the entire Fire Nation army.

Before he could say anything, they were all thrown against the side of the saddle as Appa did a hard one eighty.

"Sorry!" Aang called over his shoulder. "That way's cut off!"

They could see, over the back lip of the saddle, that Aang had come up on a valley pass, and he wasn't the first one: the division Zuko had warned them about was already camped there, with plenty of artillery already in place. Men were buzzing about.

"Tanks," Zuko pointed out four of them. "Those are faster than us over flat ground. If we fly, they'll run us down."

Katara frowned.

"We'll be even slower in a tunnel," Sokka replied.

"Doctrine is to avoid tunnels. Too easy to get ambushed by earthbenders and buried. Especially near Omashu's area of control."

Katara and Sokka exchanged glances, then, with an I'm going to regret this expression, Sokka climbed forward and got out his maps.

"Hang a left here," he said. "We're going in … there."

Appa swooped low and under an overhang, revealing a gap in the cliff face: a wide cave. There were rows of gigantic anthropomorphic wolf bat statues carrying stone weapons, then, before the tunnel twisted out of sight, a human sitting on the ground: a girl of about their age, tied up.

Appa came to a stop, and they hopped off. Sokka pulled a knife and cut the girl free.

"Hi, are you okay?"

She smiled, unruffled. "Yes, thank you," she said. To Aang, "Are you by chance the Avatar?"

"Yeah," Aang said. "… Don't I know you from somewhere?"

The Gaang all looked more closely. She was pretty, but in about the most generic way possible, other than a black eye and dried blood from nose to chin, which didn't seem to bother her. She had a good quality and pretty yellow and green dress, and no weapons. Zuko vaguely thought he recognised her, but he had to have seen a thousand Earth Kingdom girls just like her, other than the black eye. Katara gave Sokka a questioning look; he shrugged.

"I think I would remember meeting the Avatar," she said. "It is the greatest of honours." She bowed. "I am Joo Dee. I have been instructed to relay to you an invitation from the great Earth King of Ba Sing Se to visit his fine city."

"Um," Aang said. "Can we walk and talk? Bad guys right behind us."

"Of course," Joo Dee said with another bow, and she fell into step with them, into the tunnel. "Ba Sing Se is the greatest city in the world" Zuko scoffed "and will happily see to your every need."

"Our only need is to get a move on," Zuko said, overtaking them and bending a fistful of fire to light the way.

"Ba Sing Se boasts the world's finest network of trains," Joo Dee said. "We can guarantee the fastest transport at all times."

"Not really relevant here," Sokka said.

"We're actually heading to Omashu," Aang said. "I want to learn earthbending from King Bumi."

"The King of Omashu is undoubtedly very busy, and won't have time for personal tuition," she said.

"Judging from what he spent an entire day doing when we met him," Sokka said, "'busy' is not the word I'd use to describe King Bumi." Aang and Katara nodded emphatically.

They met the Mad King?

It's probably infectious.

"Ba Sing Se boasts the most master earthbenders in the world," Joo Dee said. "The Avatar would have his pick of any teacher he might desire."

"Bu-mi," Aang said, annoyed.

"The King of Omashu is invited to Ba Sing Se too," she said. "All the Avatar's companions are!"

"Hey, so, speaking of absolutely terrible conversations," said Sokka, to everyone's relief, "but who are you, actually? How did you know we'd be here? This is supposed to be a secret passage."

"I was instructed to wait here for you," she said.

They waited for her to elaborate, but she apparently considered this answer enough.

"Your king couldn't have known we'd come this way," Sokka said, frowning. "We told Chief Arnook, but he couldn't have got a message to Ba Sing Se fast enough for them to send you out here. And he wouldn't have, anyway, what if the messenger were caught and interrogated. So your king must have guessed. What were you going to do if we'd decided to go anywhere else, or if we hadn't thought to take this exact route? And if we went this way, that means we'd already decided not to go to Ba Sing Se, anyway …"

"I would have awaited further instruction from the Great Earth King," she said pleasantly.

Sokka, Katara, and Aang exchanged glances.

"Speaking of –" Sokka began, but he was interrupted by a rolling crash from behind them. Appa and Momo screeched and cowered against the ground, and the light from the tunnel entrance winked out. The tunnel entrance had been collapsed: they were trapped inside.

"… Look on the bright side," Aang said, hurrying over to Appa to give him a hug and calm him down.

"Which is?" Sokka asked, picking up Momo and giving his ears a scratch.

"Give me a minute," Aang said.

"Now the Fire Nation can't follow us, even if they wanted to?" Katara tried.

"Yeah," Aang said, trying a smile on, but it looked about as convincing as one of Zuko's.

Zuko re-conjured his fire and took the lead again. "Let's go."

"Oh yeah," Sokka said to Joo Dee. "I remembered what I was going to say. The Earth King of Ba Sing Se, the King of Omashu? I thought there was only supposed to be one king? Like, doesn't 'king' literally mean the one singular guy in charge of everything?"

"The Earth Kingdom is vast," Joo Dee said. "It's impractical to govern as a single state, so local regions self-govern, and name their government as they choose. Many are ruled by petty kings. However, all owe fealty to the one great Earth King of Ba Sing Se."

"Are we going to have to guess this one's name too?" Sokka asked. "And is it Rocky?"

"Oh, no," Joo Dee said. "But I mustn't say his name. It wouldn't do for a common lady such as myself to sully his name with my lips."

"It's Kuei," Zuko called over his shoulder. He'd done his homework before asking to join the fateful war meeting.

"Oh," Sokka said, surprised to receive a straight answer for once.

"What's the Fire Lord's name?" Katara asked. "I don't think I've ever heard anyone actually say."

"It wouldn't do for a common lady such as you to sully his name with your lips," Zuko said, more out of the principle of poking her at any opportunity than because he cared.

"Fair enough," Sokka said, forestalling Katara's response. "But we have to call him something, so he shall henceforth be known as Flamey-Toes. Fire Lord Flamey-Toes. The Sixth. When you have your first kid, he'll be Flamey-Toes the Seventh."

"Even if it's a girl?" Aang asked.

"Especially if it's a girl," Sokka replied promptly.

Don't turn around. He'll see our eye twitch.

Rather than dignify that with a response, he said, "Left or right?" The tunnel had forked. Both ways looked about equally wide. "The straight line path to Omashu would be between them, I can't reckon which is closer."

The others came up beside him.

"Azula never said anything about this," Katara said.

"Oh," Zuko said, just now realising. "This was a setup. The Fire Nation doesn't have enough men to have a division just sitting around in the middle of nowhere. They were waiting for us. She tricked us into walking into a trap."

The others exchanged glances.

"How?" Aang said. "She's in prison, she can't have told those guys we were coming. And I don't think she told us to come here; I did, she only suggested the tunnel."

"I don't know," Zuko said with conviction, "but she did, somehow. She must have planned it before the battle at Agna Qel'a. Did she want to get captured? Did she throw that fight?"

"That, uh," Aang said, searching for a polite way to put it.

"Sounds crazy?" Sokka said.

"Deranged, paranoid ranting?" Katara suggested.

"Azula is the name of the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation," Joo Dee said.

"She's behind this," Zuko insisted to the first three. "I know it. This is exactly how her schemes always go."

They exchanged glances again.

"I'm not crazy," he said. "You don't know her like I do."

"Okay," Sokka said, "but, that's not really important right now. We can't go back, and I'd rather not spend the rest of my life stuck in this cave. And even if there are more soldiers surrounding Omashu, we'll still be safer inside than out."

They thought about it.

"If we overshoot like crazy, going right would dump us in the desert, left part of the way to Ba Sing Se."

"You are invited to Ba Sing Se," Joo Dee said.

"I give up," said Sokka, so they took the left path. "But your King Kuei can't have known we'd come this way, not in time to send you all the way out here. For all he knew, we could've gone anywhere. How many other people does he have on every other route we might have taken?"

"The Earth King has vast resources at his disposal," Joo Dee said cheerfully.

You're awfully chipper for someone who was almost 'disposed' of herself. How many others have been caught by Fire Nation troops? Or the Earth Kingdom? You're incredibly suspicious, and they treat their prisoners worse than we do.

Sokka, Aang, and Katara exchanged uneasy looks.

"Are you intending to travel with us?" Katara asked. "After we all get out of this tunnel, I mean?"

"Of course," Joo Dee said. "I am to escort you to Ba Sing Se."

"We're not going to Ba Sing Se," Aang said, very firmly.

Joo Dee beamed.

Katara and Sokka exchanged looks of Absolutely not.

The tunnel angled downward, then curved right, left, then right again. There was another fork. Zuko went right. The tunnel went up, then curved left awhile, then a sharp right before a tight passage where they had to take off Appa's saddle to let him through, before another fork. Zuko hesitated, then went right. It only went a few hundred yards before hitting a dead end, which meant they had to cajole Appa to back up a few hundred yards, which took most of an hour, then they took the left branch instead. It dipped, meandered left awhile, went up, turned left a bit more, then a sharp right, before another fork. Zuko stopped.

"Are we still heading east?" Katara asked, having no idea.

"I … think so?" Zuko asked.

"You think, or you know?" Sokka asked.

"I'm used to navigating by the stars. Or landmarks. Or something. There's no reference points here. These aren't even man-made passages, they keep drifting back and forth."

Sokka flipped one of his maps onto its blank reverse and pulled out a stick of charcoal. "We need to start making a map."

Katara and Aang exchanged looks.

"I think we should go right?" she ventured. "But maybe we should stay to the left-hand side so we can't get completely lost?"

"That doesn't work if you can go up and down," Aang said. "And we already turned right earlier."

"Did we go left right left, or was it left right right left?" Sokka asked. "We had to backtrack once, but I forget when that was."

There was a beat.

"Starting from here then," he said. "Let's start with a right." They set off again.

"Out of curiosity," Zuko said, taking the lead again, "how much water do we have?"

"One skin," Katara said. "I didn't think we'd get ambushed, I was going to fill up the others this morning."

"Good to know."

"And my bending water, but I've had that since we left Agna Qel'a, it doesn't smell right. I'll, um, start refreshing it at streams from now on."

"You do that."

"There is plenty of water in Ba Sing Se," said Joo Dee.

"We still have food, though, right?" Aang asked Katara.

"Some dried fruit and vegetables," Katara said. "Rice, and probably some jerky. I don't think we should eat any of that without water."

Before Sokka could voice his opinion on this, the ceiling collapsed.

Zuko had made a point of walking ahead, mostly because he didn't feel like socialising, but partly because he'd figured there was a chance they'd trigger a cave-in, and better it only fall on him. It fell at the moment in his stride when his feet were next to each other, one in the air and swinging forward, whence it's impossible to change direction quickly; so instead of going backward, he leaned into it and dove forward. The ceiling crashed down, and the shockwave sent him bouncing and scraping against the cave floor.

"Back!" he shouted. "Get –" He inhaled hust and coughed, and he wasn't sure they could have heard him over the noise anyway. Appa had started roaring again.

He scrabbled away from the cave-in, coughed some more, and bent another light. The ceiling had sagged downward, all structural integrity gone. No hope of clearing it out: if they tried, it would collapse again and crush them.

"Is everyone all right?" Sokka asked from the other side. Appa was quieting down.

"Yeah," Aang said.

"Uh – I – I think I'm fine," Katara said, her voice an octave higher than usual.

"I got clear," Zuko said.

"It is safe in Ba Sing Se," Joo Dee said.

"Shut up, Joo Dee," said Sokka. "Let me think. Okay, I picked up torches, just in case, and I think we still have our old spark rocks. Just let me … Ow!"

"Never mind that," Zuko said. "There's no clearing this. As soon as you can, backtrack, and stick to the right-hand side. I'll keep going and stick to my left. We'll meet up eventually."

If there's a loop. And the caves don't go above or below each other. And there aren't any more cave-ins. And their water lasts. And I last.

"Right," said Sokka. "Uh – yeah. See you soon."

Zuko set off.

Never thought we'd die like this.

I always assumed it'd be Uncle's fault somehow.

We should've listened to the curse. Or at least the song.

Don't you dare.

Secret tunnel! Secret tunnel! Secret secret secret –

I hate everything. Mai had the right idea.

I miss her.

I wonder if she has a boyfriend by now?

As opposed to what, waiting for you to find the Avatar and come back to her?

Without warning, the rock floor folded upward and wrapped tight around him. He struggled against it, without effect. With his hands trapped, his fire went out, and it was pitch black. He panicked, tried to wrench his arms free to punch through, but it was layered on too thick. He struggled a bit for a few moments, but it was clearly futile.

Do you suppose we'll ever hit rock bottom and things will level out from there?

I've thought I already hit it about eight times now.

"You're a firebender. What are you doing in here?"

He couldn't see his attacker, but it was too high-pitched for a man. A young woman. Probably an aristocrat, by her elocution.

She's not restricting our breath properly. Probably never fought a firebender before. When she gets close, we can breathe fire, knock her down, and break free.

"I'm not a bender. I'm just passing through."

The rock squeezed against his sides, reminding him that his ribs were only so durable.

"Wrong answer, Sparky."

His eyes were adjusting, and it wasn't actually quite pitch black: crystals in the ceiling glowed green. It wasn't much, but he could make out a silhouette. She was short.

Hang on, if she's Earth Kingdom, we can just tell the truth.

"I'm with the Avatar," he tried instead.

"… Huh," she said. "So the stories are true, huh? He's really back. And you're, what, his firebending teacher?"

I mean, I'm not lying, but she's pretty gullible to just believe me.

It's about time we caught a break.

"Something like that."

She walked up, and he inhaled, readying his attack. He couldn't make out details in the dim light, but she was too short and slim.

She's just a kid.

He let his breath out.

"He's going to Omashu," he went on. "But we got lost and separated."

"Right," she said. "Well, whatever. It's none of my business … but I'll tell you what. I'll get you out of here if you help me with a little problem of mine. Do you know how to fight?"

"I can take care of myself."

"Good. There's this lady outside who's giving me a hard time. It's a long story. I can take her, but it'd be better if I didn't. I'll let you go, you'll get rid of her for me, and I won't tell anyone you lost to a little girl."

"Deal."

The rock peeled back, and he took a deep breath. She didn't know how to constrict breath properly, but getting rock-locked was never fun.

"This way," said the girl, setting off. She didn't care about the cave walls; with each step, they receded, keeping a bubble ten feet wide around her. He followed behind, bending his light. The girl was tiny, maybe ten, and wearing a high-quality but filthy Earth Kingdom dress. "How's a firebender wind up with the Avatar, anyway? I heard he was sworn to stop you guys."

"I don't know how long your story is," he said, "but mine's longer."

"I didn't really care anyway, Sparky," she said.

"It's Lee."

"Sure it is. I'm the Blind Bandit."

Right. I thought she hadn't reacted to our light.

So she's not inconvenienced by the dark. How did she know where we were? No way could she tell exactly where we were just from hearing, no-one's that good.

Something else. Bending sense? Pushes chi into the earth, feels our weight pushing down against it?

Neat trick. Especially for a kid. She must be good, to control that much chi that well.

Why are we constantly surrounded by prodigy bender girls?

Bet you ten gold it turns out the Avatar has a sister who also somehow got frozen, and she's a master airbender too, probably since about age eight. And she kicks our butt at least once. And then falls in love with Sokka.

"Through here," said the Blind Bandit. She stomped, and a tunnel bent up from the cave and out into daylight. Zuko led the way out, then combat rolled to the side as something whipped an inch from his face. He drew his swords and assumed a guard stance.

"June?"

The bounty hunter and her shirshu were twenty feet away, in a little valley between two ridges of cracked boulders. No trees here. "Prince Pouty," she said. "Long time no see."

"Wait," said the Blind Bandit. "You two know each other?!"

"My uncle hired her once," said Zuko.

"That was then," said June. "And nothing personal, kid, but a job's a job." She chambered her whip, ready to strike.

He put his swords away and switched to a bending stance. He'd want to keep his distance from that tongue. "Out of interest, who's paying?" he asked. "I need to blow off some steam, and I bet the goody two-shoes I'm stuck with would let me get away with beating up a child kidnapping ring."

I'll take that bet. 'Typical Fire National, assuming you can just come to other people's countries and tell them they can't enslave children, you're just the worst.' Plus something about hope.

"Hah," June said. "No amount of money's worth kidnapping this one. That's Toph Beifong. She ran away from home. Her parents want her back."

He frowned. "I didn't think the Beifong family had a daughter."

"They keep it quiet," said June. "She's blind, they have a thing about that."

Zuko glanced sharply at Toph, which would have invited a confirmation or denial, if she could see his expression.

It would explain the nice dress.

"I guess I track down stupid kids for a living now," June concluded. "Kinda boring, but the money's good."

"You think she's giving you a hard time because she's trying to reunite you with your parents?" Zuko asked Toph incredulously.

Toph folded her arms stubbornly. "You don't know me."

"You're right. I don't know you."

He swiped her by the nape of her dress and lifted her a foot off the ground. She squawked indignantly and kicked at him.

"Hey! What're you doing?! Let go of me, you creep!"

"What I do know is that earthbenders need skin contact with dirt to bend," he said, then, channelling his inner Azula, "unless they're actually any good. Hey, June. You'll leave once you have her, right?"

"I'm not here for the scenery. Or the company."

"Then this counts as getting rid of you. Catch."

"NO!" Toph screeched.

He tossed her forward; the shirshu licked her, and June caught her and draped her over the saddle horn.

"Screw you!" Toph tried to scream, but she was muffled by the paralytic and from being on her stomach. "I'm going to tell everyone you got your butt kicked by a little girl!"

"And I'll tell them you were dumb enough to try to blackmail a Fire Prince. See you around, June."

June gave Zuko a salute goodbye, and kicked her shirshu to run off.

"You suuuck!" Toph called out.

He watched them disappear behind a row of boulders.

That's not exactly blowing off steam.

Eh. We ruined someone annoying's day. That counts.

He looked around. He was in a rocky valley, surrounded by towering rock formations. There were only a few stunted little shrubs growing around, and no sign of the Fire Nation army.

So, what now?

Go back down and look for the others, I guess.

He grumbled, really not wanting to go back into the cave, but he doubled back anyway.

Earth is not like fire: when you bend it, it has to come from somewhere and go somewhere. When Toph tunnelled, she'd broken up the rock in front of her and reassembled it behind. The tunnel stopped twenty feet down in a pile of gravel.

That's not good.

Okay, ideas.

Digging through?

Yeah, no. It'll collapse on us for sure.

Look for one of the other entrances?

It's a maze down there. Then there'll just be two lost groups with no way to communicate.

We need an earthbender. Dammit, if we'd thought to ask Toph –

Forget her, June's already gone. Besides, one earthbender will take too long anyway. It'd be better if we found several and organised a search party. And as it so happens, there's a large group of earthbenders less than a day away.

So we just leave them?

Humans can survive three days without water. That's one day for us to get to Omashu, one day to bring a team of benders back through the tunnel with water, and one day to spare.

He climbed out of the tunnel, got his bearings, and set off east at a jog.

13