MY HAND slid across the grimy surface, fingertips trailing over an inch of thick slime and soot. Beneath was either brick or stone, but there was no way I could have told which.
Behind me, I heard a girl’s little grunt, and I turned in time to see Snail wriggle out of the man’s grip and take off the way she had come, done with this game. I had moments to become invisible.
Luck seemed to be with me. My fingers slid out of the muck and into open air as the entrance to a side passage opened in the wall. Not a passage, exactly. The top of the wall had crumbled away, opening onto some adjacent space, the lip of the gap at about the height of my waist. As quietly as I could, with trembling arms, I heaved myself up to sit in the mouldering masonry and swung my legs over.
I had forgotten about
