As Mari walked down the path into The Burrow, the familiar muffled sounds of hustle and bustle gradually grew. She had used this entrance many times throughout her life. It was a shared secret among academy aspirants. With Phlip hopping along at her side, she approached a circular slab of stone that terminated the hall.

  At the center of the stone was a small hexagonal depression. Mari pulled a silver pendant from beneath her vest, pressed it into the concavity where it fit with satisfying precision, and focused her mind on the door. It jarred and shifted forward, rough-cut edges revealing themselves as it moved. Loose dust fell as the slab rolled to the side and disappeared into a pocket formed by the adjoining wall. Aromatic scents washed over Mari’s nose, reminding her stomach that it still had an unresolved issue, while crowd chatter pressed in around her.

  The door opened into one of the darker alleys. Mari stepped out carefully with Phlip trailing close. Behind them, the large stone door rolled back into place. On this side, it was marked with a worn yellow number twelve, blending in as just another maintenance passage for sewer and utility access.

  Mari moved quickly out of the empty alley and wove into the bustling street. Above, vaulted ceilings were dimly lit by the warm glow of bioluminescent roots and fungi. The smell of perfectly roasted butter-stick potatoes hit her like a tunnel collapse, and her stomach growled in response. She turned toward the vendor and placed her paws on the edge of the cart, pulling her face up to peer over it.

  A large marmot in a grease-splattered apron stood behind the cart. Steam rose from the skewers along the cart’s edge.

  “That’ll be two greens!” he beamed.

  Mari shot a paw into her vest pocket. Three triangular stones greeted her. She looked up at the marmot, turned her paw over, and presented the blue gems. “I’ve only got three blues. Would you do a half potato?”

  The marmot leaned forward and looked her over, taking in the little gopher swimming in the oversized vest and the academy pendant resting on her chest. A grin spread across his face, and he winked. “Well, why didn’t you mention you’re an aspirant? How about I give you the discount? One potato for…” He paused, glanced at her paw, then back to her. “Three blues!”

  He popped a skewered potato free and extended it down. Mari reached up and slid the gems onto the corner of the cart. A shy smile tugged across her face as she thanked him.

  Phlip nosed her shoulder. Mari turned to see his large glassy eye nearly touching hers. His gaze dropped to the potato.

  Mari hesitated, then broke it in half. She popped one piece into Phlip’s mouth as he fidgeted with excitement.

  She ate while the crowd swept them through Merchant Hollow, one of The Burrow’s busiest digs. Shops climbed the walls and curled into the ceiling, held by twisted roots and stacked stone. Almost anything could be found here. Food, psionic amplifiers, elixirs, codices, even pre-war tech if you knew which offshoot to follow.

  The crowd chatter was typical, but something caught Mari’s attention. A knot of rodents had gathered close, looking over their shoulders and tightening their circle. Mari slowed just enough to pass within earshot.

  A young black-and-white hamster whispered, “My cousin, the one in Shadowpaw, said there was suspicious activity in Deepworks earlier.”

  “That’s a load of worms,” a tan shrew snapped. “The Builders would never let anything happen to Deepworks. It’s too important to The Burrow. Plus, that new guy runs a tight burrow. What’s his name again?”

  A mottled chocolate-and-cream gerbil cut in. “Ordinate Rull.”

  “Yeah. Good beaver. Everything’ll be fine. After all, packed earth outlasts panic.” The shrew delivered it like a verdict.

  Mari fell back into the flow and glanced at Phlip. “Jerro might be off shift. Tailweaver’s on the way. Wanna check?” Phlip hopped along, unbothered.

  Mari pulled the last of the potato off the skewer with her teeth. “Yeah. Jerro’ll know.”

  They rounded a corner into a narrow alley that ended abruptly at towering wooden double doors. Arched stained-glass windows flanked the entry. Above it, Tailweaver’s curved in bold black letters, the inlaid glass catching the glow and casting amber ripples onto the stone.

  Mari pulled the brass latch. The door gave, and light poured into the alley. Tea and dusty old books wrapped around her, replacing Merchant Hollow’s earth-and-spice as she slipped inside with Phlip close behind.

  A stout, bespectacled hedgehog sat cross-legged in a plush maroon corner chair, puffing on a pipe. Vanilla smoke rose from it, drifting up through the warmth of a central stone hearth. Not one fireplace, but a split rectangle, half hanging from the ceiling and half set into the floor. Flames danced between the sections. It crackled softly. Bookshelves climbed to the ceiling, with a track ladder clipped along the top row. Mismatched furniture filled the room, gathered over years. Every piece, a quiet invitation to stay, and a story of its own to share. In the opposite corner, a round-eared gray chinchilla and a tri-colored guinea pig in glasses bent over a heavy text, murmuring as they read.

  Mari crossed to the back hall. A short bookshelf stood beneath a gold filigree-framed illustration of a ship in a terrible storm, waves breaking over the deck.

  Two worn wooden doors faced each other. Behind her, Phlip settled against the warm stone.

  A sign on the left door showed a pile of small oval pellets, and the door hung ajar, revealing a toilet and washbasin. The opposite door was shut, a stained placard above it engraved: Rufus.

  Mari leaned in, listened, then knocked.

  “Not in this lune,” the hedgehog called.

  Mari poked her head back into the main room. “Oh, thanks Xan. Do you know where he is?”

  “No idea. He was here earlier, then popped off without a word.”

  Mari turned to the chinchilla and guinea pig. “How about Jerro? You seen him around?”

  The guinea pig shook her head, then glanced at the chinchilla. “Not today. Not since we got here.”

  Mari let out a small puff of air. “Alright, thanks.” Her eyes caught on their oversized book as she drifted closer. “What’re you reading?”

  The guinea pig tipped the cover up without losing her place. “The Prime History of The Burrow, by Yari Highpaw.”

  “Underrated historian,” Xan added from across the room, the pipe still clenched between his teeth. “Great writer too.”

  “Actually…” The chinchilla pushed the book open and flipped toward the back, the pages thumping down on the guinea pig’s bookmark arm. “There’s a section on the Great Bird War. Outriders, founding, all of it. And there’s a picture.” He rifled faster, then froze. “Isn’t this your mom?”

  Mari stepped in beside them. A gentle smile found her face. “Yeah,” she said softly. “That’s her.”

  She traced the monochrome line. Gophers sat mounted on long-eared, peppered rabbits, striped helmets capped on their heads. Her finger stopped on a small gopher with gracile features, reins gripped tight, gaze pulled off-scene with the others.

  “Dad too.” Mari pointed to the rider beside her mother. He sat proud, a head taller than her mom.

  “I can’t believe I’ve never seen this picture,” Mari said. “Dad never talks about it.” The smile slipped.

  The guinea pig leaned around her. “Hey Alfie. Can I have my arm back now?”

  Alfie blinked and flipped the pages back. “Sorry, Jess.”

  Jess tugged her arm free and shook it out. “No worries. But a fresh cup of tea wouldn’t hurt,” she said, then took a swig from her chipped mug and held it out toward Alfie.

  Mari crossed back to Phlip and ran a paw down his back. “Thanks for showing me that,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “I’ll read it later. Come on, Phlip. Let’s head home.”

  They rejoined the crowd in Merchant Hollow. The tunnel widened, and a cooler, deep magenta glow filled the passage as the crowd thinned. She was nearing The Spine, the central column of The Burrow, spiraling upward to connect the sub-corridors. It rose through a small opening to the surface. Through it, a thin slice of night sky showed. Moonlight slipped down through the gap, the only sky many there would ever see.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Ascending through The Spine’s center was an imposing crystalline structure, the source of the light. A pair of robed rats knelt beside it, eyes closed. A river of light meandered to their foreheads and settled between their brows. As the moonlight strengthened overhead, the crystal shifted toward deep blue. Nearby shop signs followed suit, their hues turning with the crystal’s pulse.

  “New lune,” one of the rats murmured. The other echoed it like a habit.

  “Miss Stonepaw,” a shrill voice called out behind her.

  Mari stopped and turned slowly.

  Mister Craghorb stood in the middle of the street, a small ground squirrel with long, wispy eyebrows and a maroon robe. He pierced her with squinted eyes.

  “Miss Stonepaw…” His voice was strangely deep yet squeaky as he approached, inspecting her more closely, his gaze dropping to her feet before snapping back to her eyes. “We missed you at lessons today. I assumed perhaps you were unwell… but your constitution seems to be in good quality.”

  Mari glanced at Phlip without moving her head, then back to Mister Craghorb. “Mister Craghorb, my father’s sick. I’ve been caring for him all day. You know it’s just the two of us.” She added quickly, “I ran out to get quantum blue carrot matrices. They help.”

  “Alright, young lady,” he squeaked, turning away dismissively. Then he stopped and turned back. “I don’t have to remind you, it’s been eight cycles since a gopher has been admitted to the Yarrow Academy for Gifted Rodents?”

  “I do, Mister Craghorb.” Mari steadied her voice. “And I’m sorry I missed class. I’ll make up the work. Promise.”

  He stepped closer, keeping his voice low. “Mari, I know you and your father don’t have the same luxuries as many of the other aspirants. Tutors. Private lessons. That sort of thing.” He studied her before continuing. “And I may not be your favorite instructor, but I push most where I see the greatest potential.”

  Without another word, he patted Mari’s shoulder and resumed taking his leave. As he shuffled away, he shot a final glance over his shoulder, the corner of a grin showing.

  Mari waved awkwardly and hurried off with Phlip toward the pathway that wound up the perimeter wall of The Spine. She turned down the dig that led to her den.

  “Why’d he look at my feet?” she asked Phlip as she glanced down.

  Rusty dirt caked her paws. The kind only found high up Long Valley.

  ∞

  Her den had a large courtyard, especially for this dig. The ceiling roots gave off a calm, familiar glow, the kind that never flickered and never fully left a corner dark. In one corner sat a mat of straw. Mari led Phlip in, and he joyously hopped over to the worn bedding. She pulled fresh hay from a storage bin near the porch and filled a bowl with water from a spigot.

  “Sleep well, pal,” she whispered as he munched away.

  Mari moved to the circular stone door that served as the entrance to her den. She placed her paw on the groove running around its edge and gently rolled it to the right into a pocket in the earthen wall. While it was only halfway open, she slipped inside and quietly closed it behind her.

  Sweetness hit the moment she stepped in. She rushed into the kitchen. A pot of caramelized carrot soup cooled on the counter beside an empty bowl and wooden spoon. Mari filled the bowl and shoveled it down, warm and creamy, with a sugary roasted bite.

  The den was silent, except for a muffled voice seeping from her father’s bedroom. She recognized the cadence immediately. As she neared the open passage, the sound swelled to full volume.

  A gregarious voice boomed through the room. “Greetings, contestants and listeners! I’m your host Bobber Broadtail, and this is How Deep Can We Dig! Brought to you by Beaverwave Broadcasting! Today, we are putting up two of our returning contestants, Cluver and Cloe, the dynamic duo hailing from Merchant Hollow, to see if they can solve the mystery that our riddle masters have spun!”

  Mari paused at the passage and watched her father’s chest rise and fall with each snore. The far wall of his room was plastered with pictures of the two of them. Her first day of Burrow School. The day he taught her to ride Phlip. A picture of her holding her acceptance letter to the academy. Centered on the wall was a painted portrait of her mother, her father, and her as a pup.

  He choked and rolled slightly, struggling to breathe.

  Mari took a step into the room, opened his door further, then stopped herself. His breathing returned to a normal cadence.

  “Sleep well, Dad,” she whispered, and quietly went to her own room.

  She flopped onto her bed and stared into the darkness. Her bedroom sat back from the courtyard, tucked into the earth where the walls kept the air cool and still. The bed felt like a pocket of safety, a low wooden frame with a thick mattress and layered quilts that held her in place, the way it always had. Her pillow carried a faint, clean scent of dried grass.

  Her eyes wandered to the desk against the far wall. She could just make out the cluttered stacks of paper, charcoal sticks, and sketches pinned and layered over one another. Some were familiar, quick studies of Long Valley. Slopes and grasses, a line of trees, the suggestion of a trail she’d walked before. Others came from somewhere else entirely, places her paws had never touched. Vistas too wide, skies that felt wrong in the best way, and shapes she couldn’t name but kept drawing anyway, as if her mind knew them before she did.

  A soft aquamarine light pulsed to life from a small stone set into the wall beside her headboard, projecting slow abstract shapes across the ceiling. The patterns stretched, softened, and dissolved, like ripples seen from below the surface.

  ∞

  Mari was floating.

  Weightless. Suspended in something warm and dense, like liquid, though she wasn’t struggling to breathe. Calm seeped through her thoughts, dulling the edges of awareness. She raised a paw to her face and touched something smooth and unfamiliar.

  A mask.

  It covered her mouth and nose. Ribbed tubes extended from its sides, pulsing faintly. Panic flickered, brief and distant, before the calm pressed it back down.

  Through blurred vision, she lifted her paw again, but it wasn’t a paw.

  Hairless. Pale. Long fingers extended from a wide, flat palm. It moved when she told it to, yet it felt wrong. Not hers.

  A sudden surge of force tore through the stillness.

  The warmth vanished. Gravity returned all at once. Mari was expelled, dropped or thrown, from whatever had held her. She struck cold stone and gasped as the shock rattled through her body.

  She lay shivering, breath coming in broken pulls, the darkness around her thick and shifting. Shadows flowed like smoke along the walls, folding over themselves.

  Then the stone beside her began to glow.

  Lines traced themselves into existence, warming the darkness with soft amber light. Symbols and letters emerged, familiar, impossibly so. The same language she had seen carved into the cave walls.

  Images followed.

  Celestial bodies drifted across the surface. Long, thin creatures moved in silence. Unfamiliar rodents stood beneath vast skies. Sleek parabolic ships cut through space in tight formation.

  Last, the symbol appeared.

  Nested diamonds, circumscribed and precise. It burned brighter than the rest. Beneath it, an inscription began to form.

  Before she could focus, before the meaning could settle—

  ∞

  “Mari!”

  She jolted awake.

  Her father stood over her, his face tight with urgency. “Mari. We’ve got to evacuate. There’s been an incident at Deepworks. The Burrow’s flooding.” He grabbed her paw. “Quickly. There isn’t much time.”

  Mari sprang up, snagging her pack as her father pulled her toward the door. Once outside, she overtook him as he slowed and doubled over coughing. She whistled sharply.

  Phlip leapt over the fence and joined her in stride.

  The main corridor was filled with rushing water up to their waists. Other residents poured from their dens and sloshed through the main thoroughfare toward The Spine. Upstream, a large family of prairie dogs attempted to ford the torrent. Two pups were swept up, crying out for help.

  Mari swung onto Phlip’s back and outstretched an arm toward her dad. His paw gripped halfway up her forearm, and she hauled him onto the rabbit’s strong back. Phlip’s powerful build held steady in the rapids as they dodged debris and moved along the edges of the flood, leaping across courtyards.

  As they made swift progress, Mari pointed back to two tan dots swirling down the dig toward them. “Dad, those are the Graslow pups!”

  “Get us to that fence line,” he said, pointing to the arched entrance of a connecting dig where a courtyard fence abutted.

  Mari guided Phlip to the spot and they dismounted quickly. Her dad grabbed a rope from Phlip’s saddle and started wrapping it around his midsection.

  Mari snatched the other end and tied it around herself. “Dad, I’m going out there, not you. You and Phlip reel me back in.”

  He looked at her, bewildered. “I’m not letting you go out there.”

  “Dad, you won’t make it. This isn’t a debate.”

  She finished the knot, dropped her pack, and before he could stop her, she vaulted the fence and plunged into the freezing, turbid water. Fighting the current, she swam out, planning her intercept course for the pups.

  They had split. Mari set her sights on the farther one and drove forward, paw over paw, fighting the pull of the river.

  A wave smashed into her. The rope jerked taut.

  Treading water, she looked back. A log had caught the rope. It rolled, wedged into the ceiling, and the line went tight like a trap.

  Mari swung on the rope as the current dragged her downstream. Another wave broke over her. Mud filled her mouth. Something solid struck her under the surface and knocked the breath from her chest.

  Mari fought up and gasped.

  The far pup slid past along the distant shore.

  Behind her, a high-pitched cry cut through the roar of water. Mari whipped around and threw out an arm, catching the nearer pup by its scruff. Tiny paws clung to her soaked fur. She fought her way back toward the log where the rope had snagged. It had only looped once, and she managed to free it with numb digits.

  Her father and Phlip towed her and the pup back to the near shore. They used the fence to haul her over.

  Mari collapsed to her knees, panting and coughing as water spilled from her lungs. “I couldn’t save them both,” she choked out, eyes welling. “Dad… the other one was too far.”

  Her father pulled her into a hug before she could say more, sandwiching the pup between them. “You did amazing,” he said, voice rough. “Your mother would be so proud.”

  The three of them climbed back onto Phlip. Mari wiped the drying muck from her face, took the reins, and steadied her voice.

  “Go, Phlip. Get us out of here.”