Unwritten Books 3 - The Young City by James Bow Page A

shone the light above her. It bounced against the hole in the ceiling. It was just an indentation. Rosemary brushed her hand over the unbroken rock inside the hole. “It’s solid.” She looked at Peter, her eyes wide and her cheeks pale. “It’s not here.”
    He turned, shining the lantern across the cavern ceiling. “This is the only ....” He stopped himself. His face grew pale as well.
    “We’re stuck here!” She gasped.
    “Rosemary, no, listen to me!” He grabbed her. “You don’t know that. We’ve only just started looking!”
    “Where else can we look? Peter, what are we going to do?”
    He put his hand to her mouth, but it was the sudden tension in his shoulders that silenced her. He was looking at the stream, listening. He snatched the lantern and blew it out.
    “What are you do—.” Then she saw it: where the buried river left the cavern, the tunnel glowed with orange light. Voices echoed, coming closer. A boat pulled into view, pushed upstream by a man hoisting a pole like a gondolier. Two other men sat in the boat, the one in front casting lantern light over the cavern walls.
    “The boat’s scraping bottom,” said the gondolier. “If His Nibs wants to take this route, he’s going to have to put wheels on the boat.”
    “Keep quiet and keep mapping,” said the man holding the lantern.
    “Why should I?” said the third man in the boat, holding a lap desk on his knees. “I know where we are! I’ve been through this cavern twice. The last time, I could have walked it and not gotten my shoes wet.”
    “You’re going to walk it if you don’t shut it,” said the man with the lantern. “Unless you want to put up gaslight, I’ll want to trust your maps. Where is this new pipe?”
    “Two hundred feet forward north, on your right,” said the cartographer.
    “North?” scoffed the man with the lantern. “What does the compass say?”
    “North,” said the cartographer.
    “Check the compass!”
    The gondolier pulled something from his pocket. “North,” he said at last.
    The lantern man grumbled.
    Peter and Rosemary stared as the boat pushed upstream. A few minutes later, they heard a voice cry out, “Found it! On your right!”
    “Just where I said it would be!”
    “Good. Let’s go back.”
    “Wait,” said the cartographer. “His Nibs wanted the tunnel explored.”
    “His Nibs wanted the tunnel
found
,” said the lantern man. “We found it. That’s all we’re going to do. The pipe is dry. Do you want to drag the boat along it?”
    There was more grumbling, then silence. A moment later, the boat floated downstream into thetunnel. The glow from the departing lantern flickered, faded, vanished.

     
    It was a long, silent trek back. When Peter and Rosemary struggled out of their muddy boots and snuck back in to Faith and Edmund’s kitchen, the moon had set. Back in their room, Rosemary slumped into a chair and stared out the window.
    Peter draped his dirty trousers by the washtub, then stared at Rosemary’s drooping shoulders. He came up beside her and touched her cheek. “Hey.”
    She looked at him, a shadow behind her gaze. He knelt to face her. “Look, we’re not beaten yet. That portal has to be there somewhere. We’ll find it. We won’t be here long, okay?”
    Her smile was hollow. “Okay.”
    He sighed and turned to bed. Slipping beneath the covers, he fluffed his pillow and stared at the ceiling. After a minute, he looked back at the window. Rosemary hadn’t moved.
    “Rosemary, it’s late. Come to bed.”
    “I will,” she muttered. But she didn’t move. She stared out at the city until the sun rose and the buildings came back to life.

C HAPTER S EVEN
     
    TWO MONTHS LATER
     
    Rosemary woke gasping. She blinked at the ceiling, then heard Peter snoring in her ear. She relaxed. She wasn’t drowning.
    “Stupid dream.” She pushed him aside and slipped out of bed.

     
    After breakfast, Rosemary stood before her mirror, brushing out her hair. The brush