The club's back entrance opened after two knocks.
The man who answered — large, tattooed, with the expression of someone who had seen enough to take most things calmly — looked at Levi and Priscilla for a moment, then looked at the alley behind them to check for company.
"We're looking for JB," said Levi.
"Come on," the man said, and led them inside.
The club was closed at this hour — chairs on tables, the bar dark, the kind of quiet that mid-morning gives venues designed for night. They were taken to an office at the back where a man was sitting on a couch with two associates, a lit blunt, and the particular ease of someone who operated in a city on lockdown the same way he operated in any other city.
He looked at Levi and Priscilla.
"Timz," he said to the man who'd brought them in, "why are you bringing minors into my club."
"They asked for JB."
The man — JJ, Levi gathered — looked at them again. His expression changed slightly — not alarm, more recognition. "Hold on," he said. He picked up his phone, opened the news feed, looked at the broadcast image of Levi and Priscilla's faces, looked at Levi and Priscilla.
"Y'all just killed the emperor," he said.
Levi said nothing.
JJ looked at them for a long moment. Then he took a slow drag from the blunt and let the smoke out. "That tyrant's been running this empire into the ground for fifteen years," he said. "You just did every citizen of Levatia a favour they were too afraid to do for themselves." He looked at Priscilla. "You need JB."
"And an escape route," said Levi.
JJ pulled out his phone. "Give me a minute."
—
Jamal arrived ten minutes later, slightly breathless, grinning the grin of someone who had watched the broadcast and had been waiting to see what happened next.
"Little homies," he said. "Still alive after what you pulled on live TV. Respect."
"We need out of the city," Levi said.
"I know. Come on." He looked past them toward the door. "The others still in the car?"
"Yes. One of them needs medical attention."
Jamal nodded and looked at JJ. JJ was already standing.
"Bring the car around back," JJ said. "I'll meet you in the garage."
✦ ✦ ✦
The garage was below the club — accessible through a floor elevator in the back room, large enough for two vehicles. Zarraz drove the sedan in and the door closed above them.
JJ looked at the ambassador in the back seat. He was conscious but barely tracking, his breathing shallow. JJ opened the car door, crouched beside him, and looked at him with the focused attention of someone assessing a specific problem.
"What did they do to him?" he asked.
"Three days of the Empress's methods," Sylvia said, from the other side. "We don't know the specifics."
JJ rolled up his sleeve, showing an arm covered in intricate tattoo work — not decorative, Levi realised, but functional. Each design was a contained magic circle, sealed and dormant, the way a battery is sealed until you need it.
He pressed two fingers to the ambassador's forearm and drew a new circle — small, precise, his emblem at the centre. The ink appeared as if it had always been there.
A few seconds later, the ambassador's face changed. The tightness around his eyes released. His breathing deepened.
"What did you do?" Priscilla asked.
"Morphine delivery and endorphin stimulation. The circle keeps the dosage regulated — won't overshoot, won't interact badly with whatever else is in his system." JJ stood. "Five hours, maybe six. Get him to a real doctor before it wears off."
The trio looked at each other.
"That's—" Sylvia started.
"His ability," Levi said. "He inscribes the spell directly onto the person."
"Medical application," Priscilla said. The tone of someone filing something significant.
JJ looked at her. "You're perceptive."
"It's a habit," said Priscilla.
JJ almost smiled. He pressed a hidden panel in the garage wall. The car began to descend — a platform elevator, smooth and silent, taking them below the garage level into darkness.
"Jamal takes it from here," JJ said, as the ceiling closed above them. "Y'all stay safe."
Levi looked up at the closing gap. "Thank you."
"Return the favour someday," JJ said. Then the elevator closed.
✦ ✦ ✦
The path below the city was old — stone-cut, wide enough for the car, lit by strips of bioluminescent material that gave the tunnel walls a faint blue glow. Jamal drove with the easy confidence of someone who had used this route before.
"How long has this been here?" Priscilla asked.
"Longer than the emperor's reign," Jamal said. "These tunnels predate the current government. JJ's family's been maintaining them for three generations."
"And nobody official knows about them," Levi said.
"Nobody who would do anything about it." Jamal navigated a fork without hesitation. "The people who run cities officially and the people who actually run cities are not always the same people."
They drove for twenty minutes through the blue-lit tunnels, Jamal making turns that Levi tried to follow and eventually stopped trying to follow. At the end, a wall that looked solid. Jamal got out, pressed his hand to the stone for a moment — some application of his ability, Levi guessed — and drove through.
They came out in a road tunnel, ordinary concrete, the ambient light of early afternoon visible at the far end.
"Outside the city wall," Jamal said, from the car window. He pointed. "Tunnel exit, T junction, take the right. That takes you toward the Olympia border." He looked at all of them in turn. "Your people will be at the crossing?"
"Yes," said Levi.
"Then you're good." Jamal leaned back. "JB got you."
Levi held out his hand. Jamal dapped it.
"Seriously," Levi said. "Thank you. Both of you. You didn't have to do any of this."
"Nah," Jamal said. "We did." He looked at the tunnel exit, the light at the end of it. "This empire needs to rebuild now. That starts with getting rid of the people who kept it broken, and you took the first step." He looked at Levi. "We did the rest."
He put the car in reverse and started backing toward the tunnel entrance.
"Godspeed, little homies," he said.
Zarraz drove them out.
✦ ✦ ✦
The road outside the capital was empty — the lockdown had cleared the ordinary traffic, which was either fortunate or ominous depending on how you read it. Zarraz drove steadily, not fast enough to attract attention, the border coordinates on the device in Levi's hand.
In the back seat, the ambassador was sleeping — properly sleeping, his breathing even, the pain-relief circle on his arm doing its work. Sylvia sat beside him, monitoring.
"He needs a hospital," she said.
"Melissa will have arranged it," Levi said. "The border crossing will have medical support."
Priscilla was quiet, looking at the countryside going past the window — flat land, open sky, the capital's skyline already small in the rear mirror. "Do you think they'll come after us?" she asked.
"The empire is going to be chaotic for a while," Levi said. "They just lost their head of government on live television. The priority will be internal stability, not chasing three teenagers across a border." He paused. "Probably."
"Probably," Priscilla repeated.
"It's the honest answer."
Zarraz said nothing. He drove with the focused economy of someone who had completed his task and was now running out the clock on the operational portion of the mission. His non-dominant arm in its cast rested against the window. His dominant hand was steady on the wheel.
Levi thought about the ten seconds at the embassy. The Emperor's face in the moment before. The shot from three hundred metres with a broken arm and a fractured rib. Zarraz's expression afterward — not satisfaction, not relief, just the neutral completion of something filed under finished.
Eighteen.
He didn't ask about it. Some things were better understood than discussed.
The border was forty minutes away. The sky was clear. The road was empty.
Levi held the dagger handle and thought about Melissa waiting at the crossing — arms folded, expression giving nothing away, recalibrating what she expected from them upward.
He was looking forward to seeing her face.