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Six of the eight towers had names, Voreese explained. There was the Entry Tower, the Bell Tower, the Book Tower, the Star Tower, the Tower of Day, and the Tower of Night. The remaining two had never received names--or at least not ones that Voreese was aware of--because they had never really been used for anything other than storage. Given Warrenhold’s size and its ill reputation, excessive visitors had never been much of a problem.

The Entry Tower was not the largest, but it was still the tallest by an extra third, as it was the only tower to reach all the way up to the surface. And according to Voreeese, it was also one of the things that made Warrenhold so easily defensible. Any invading force had only two options: storm the bottlenecking Entry Tower or dig through forty-six meters of nearly solid rock.

The Star Tower, on the other hand, was unquestionably the shortest and smallest of the eight. It was the one that was half-destroyed and hanging from the ceiling. Voreese seemed surprised at the sight of it and unfortunately couldn’t explain how or when that had happened. Hector shined a light through the hole that was now its belly and could see the mass of nightrock therein, a black box partially suspended in mid-air.

‘You don’t happen to know where the generator is located, do you?’ said Garovel.

She shook her head. ‘Sorry. The last time I was down here, that kinda thing hadn’t been invented yet.’

‘I figured.’

The Tower of Night was surely the most impressive of the eight, Hector felt. Larger than all the others and composed entirely of nightrock, it was still completely intact. Even its doors were nightrock, uniquely made so that they would slide horizontally instead of needing to be pushed or pulled open. Voreese said that Stasya did this because the doors were too heavy for normal people and that the locking mechanism for them had also been quite far ahead of its time.

Voreese guided them down, all the way to what seemed like the bottom of the tower, only to reveal a hidden door in the floor that led deeper still.