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from their Beasts, Gulkien began to stalk the area outside the cave, sniffing and growling. Firepos sat seriously, her head poised to watch the sky. Nera paced and scratched the rock impatiently, her gold fur rippling.
    â€œImpressive,” Castor said. “At least your bird knows how to dive.”
    â€œThat’s enough!” Tanner snapped at him. He raised a finger to his lips. “This place is dangerous. We need to be quiet.”
    Tanner felt the ground trembling. Pebbles danced and shook, and as he approached the cave, he heard a heavy metallic clanking and banging. There was a distant hiss, like steam being released, and then the noise of metal striking metal sounded even louder. A low voice boomed over the racket, barking unintelligible orders, bellowing from somewhere deep inside the earth. Tanner hesitated at the dark cave entrance. It sounded like the noise of dungeons and nightmares. He heard Castor and Gwen approach behind him.
    â€œI’ll see what’s happening,” Tanner whispered. “I’ll go as far as I can without being seen.”
    â€œWe should all go,” Gwen said. “Geffen might be in there.”
    â€œNo, it’s too risky,” he said. “Only one of us needs to see what’s happening to come up with a plan.”
    To Tanner’s surprise, Castor didn’t put up a fight. Instead, he stayed on Nera’s back. His face was dark and unreadable. His mood has changed, Tanner thought.
    â€œAll right. We’ll wait with the Beasts,” Gwen said. “Be careful.”
    Firepos squawked and shuffled closer. Tanner forced a smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back before you know it.”

T anner creeped into the blackness. The passage went down, and, as it turned, the entrance disappeared around the corner behind him. Tanner paused to allow his eyes to adjust to the dark. Dim orange lanterns hung from hooks along the ceiling. The walls were lined with wooden support posts, and ahead, the passage opened into a broad cavern. It felt like looking into the black heart of the earth.
    The farther Tanner crawled along, the more deafening the crash of metal became. The air stank of sulfur, and acrid smoke stung Tanner’s throat. Carefully, he slipped behind a rock wall. In the darkness, he fingered the scrap of linen tied around his wrist. Past a line of boulders, fires flickered and flashed, and beneath a voice shouting orders, Tanner heard the sound of boys crying out.
    â€œFaster! Move!” the booming voice yelled.
    Tanner crouched low and crawled to a boulder overlooking the armory. It was hot, the air thick and hard to breathe. He peered around the side.
    Below spread a cavern twice the size of the market square in Tanner’s village of Forton. The ceiling was tall and lined with jagged stalactites. In the middle of the room an assembly of rusted, gaping furnaces had been installed back-to-back, with pipes that shot all the way up into the ceiling. Exhausted boys worked in lines, lugging overloaded wheelbarrows of rocks from carts at one end of the cave to the red-hot furnace fires. Two sets of iron tracks ran into dark holes in the wall, presumably to the rock faces where the iron ore was being quarried. Boys worked the massive bellows, blasting air into the red-hot furnaces, while others poured liquid metal into stone casts. As they cooled, the strongest-looking boys hammered and sweated at long, iron gray forges and anvils. Even they were so thin that Tanner could make out the bulges of their ribs through their burned and ragged clothes. In the flickering light, Tanner saw that the rear wall was lined with wooden cages. Something writhed and glimmered from between their feet. Rows of eyes stared out between the bars.
    Tanner’s gaze was caught by the reflection of the furnace flames glinting on a heap of ax heads and breastplates near the forges. A boy raised a conical helmet in the orange firelight. They’re being