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‘Dunno,’ said Roman. ‘He seems just fine to me.’

‘Oh yeah? Well, then, it must be true, because there’s no way your young, inexperienced ass could be mistaken, right?’

‘Pulling the age card, huh? What a surprise.’

‘Damn right. And I’m not sorry, either. You’ll just have to forgive me if I decide to trust my instincts over yours.’

‘Not like I was expecting different.’ The notion of using brute force was sticking in his mind, and Roman decided to invoke his power just a bit. He slammed the wall with a wave of force, knocking up a thin spray of dust from the floor but otherwise not even making the stones tremble.

‘Getting frustrated?’

‘A bit.’ He tried again, putting more oomph into it.

It made no difference. The wall budged not a whit, nor did any of the individual stones, as far as he could tell.

“Geez,” he muttered under his breath.

‘Feeling inadequate?’

‘Shut up.’

He could’ve put even more power into his next attempt, but he decided to just move on to the next room. He’d be here all night if he didn’t pick up the pace. Hell, he probably still would, anyway. These towers were too damn big.

Which motivated his next question.

‘Why did Stasya make this place so friggin’ huge?’

‘She wanted it to be a hub between the surface and the Undercrust.’

‘Yeah, you mentioned that before, but still, was this size really necessary for that? I mean, the “Warrenhole” as you call it, is only so big. That’d limit how many people could come and go from above and below. There’s no way all this space would be necessary to handle the traffic. And even if it was, she could’ve just added more to the castle later, when it became relevant. But from the way you’ve described it, she didn’t do that, right? She made all this at once?’

‘It took her many years, but yeah. She never stopped work until she was done.’

‘So then why? This just seems so excessive.’

Voreese’s ethereal, avian eyes held on him for a moment. ‘You’re not wrong. In fact, I remember saying something much the same to her, myself. I didn’t exactly appreciate hanging around here, doing jack shit for years, while she toiled away in silence.’

‘How’d she respond?’

‘She told me she didn’t expect me to understand. And that if I was bored, I should leave.’

‘Harsh.’

‘Yeah, she was kind of a bitch, sometimes.’