It was equally clear that people had lived here, once. The linoleum was the sort usually installed in low-rent apartment buildings and public kitchens, places where mud might be tracked in from the outside, where children played and messes were made. It didn’t look industrial or cold. It looked like the front hall of a community center, one that had been inexplicably abandoned by its residents.

Or maybe not so inexplicably. The entry was hidebehind construction, and the hidebehinds had been a part of the original community. They must have left with the rest, either because they no longer felt safe, or because they couldn’t bring in the supplies they needed without passing through the human-controlled parts of the building. I looked up, following the exposed wiring between the lampshades. It vanished into the corner of the hall. I was willing to bet that this hallway, and any others like it, had been illicitly wired into the city power grid, providing a low drain so constant that no one had ever noticed it.

“This is where you left the other group, right?” I asked.

“Yes, Priestess,” squeaked the mouse. “They were to continue searching the rooms until their shift passed, or one came seeking them.”

“Okay, that’s good. That means we’re not totally alone down here.” I started walking forward. Either the hidebehinds hadn’t made any effort to conceal the doors on the other side of their clever gate, or there were more rooms down here than made sense, strictly speaking. It seemed like I passed a room every five or six feet. Most of the doors were closed, but the space between them and the floor was enough for a determined Aeslin mouse to squeeze through.

“Shall I call them for you, Priestess?”

“Yes, why don’t you d—” I stopped mid-word. “Wait.”

There were footsteps coming down the hall, sharp and quick and unmistakably bipedal. They were coming toward us from around a corner up ahead.

The hall was effectively featureless, leaving me nowhere to hide except the obvious. I whirled and tried the knob of the nearest door. Locked. I tiptoed as quickly as I could back down the hall, my heart hammering against my ribs. I wasn’t unarmed—I hadn’t voluntarily gone anywhere without a weapon since my eleventh birthday party—but if this came down to a fight, I couldn’t be sure that I was going to win. I didn’t know what was coming down that hall, and my parents didn’t raise me to charge in blind when there was any other option.

The second knob turned under my hand. I pushed the door open, not letting go of the knob, since I didn’t want it to bang against the wall, and ducked inside. The room was dark, but that didn’t matter as much as getting out of the hall.

Easing the door most of the way closed, I braced myself against it, ear to the wood, and listened.

The footsteps got louder. A female voice, muffled by the semi-closed door and distorted by the hallway, said, “I thought we’d be done by now.”

I couldn’t recognize the speaker, not with the way the environment was working against me, but I could pick up on her tone. She was pissed.

“I told you, this isn’t an exact science.” The second voice belonged to a man. Apart from that, I couldn’t say. “Sometimes it takes four, sometimes it takes fourteen. There’s a reason we brought back the last five seasons.”

“Yeah, ratings, and that arrogant bitch insisting we had to stick to the Top Twenty format even when we weren’t having auditions. Why does she have so much pull with the network?”

“She’s the face of the show. They need to keep her happy.” The man’s voice was calm, even reasonable: he was clearly the one in charge, and doing his part to manage his companion’s mood.

I was glad I was hidden, and no one could see the relief in my expression. The only person who could be described as “the face of the show” was Brenna—even Adrian wasn’t as recognized as she was, and wouldn’t be identified as quickly on the street. Brenna had been instrumental in putting together the All-Star season, but she hadn’t been part of the plan to sacrifice us to the snake god. I’d already been pretty sure of that. Having it confirmed was still reassuring. For one thing, it meant there wasn’t an entire nest of dragons arrayed against me.

“This is all pointless. We could use anybody.”

“This particular snake god prefers talented sacrifices. Young people at the height of their powers. We give it what it wants, and it will give us what we want. Feeding it the staff would just anger it. You just need to have patience.”

“I don’t want to have patience. I want to have results.”