Sehun sticks his fingers up under the edge of the crossbeam on the ceiling, gently lowering a hatch. When he has it about halfway down, a rope ladder falls to the floor. We all look at one another and it's one of those moments when everything comes into sharp focus; one wrong move and we're dead.

"Everyone do a quick check for you knives and for you blow darts. And hand over your phones," Rosé whispers, and we do. "No mistakes, no fumbles."

Sehun and Rosé grind out SIM cards into the floor and snap our phones in half before stashing them in some old boots. The four of us share a look, affirming that everything is in order. Sehun places his lit candle between his teeth and climbs upward, while Lisa snuffs hers out, slipping it back into her jacket pocket.

I follow Sehun up the rope ladder with Rosé and Lisa right behind me. As soon as I reach the ceiling, I pull myself up into a small circular room about the size of a walk-in closet that has nothing in it except a stone staircase. Sehun waits with the candle while Rosé and Lisa hoist themselves into the room, and after closing the hatch, the four of us start up the steep staircase together.

The stone steps are worn, suggesting that the Tiger estate is an old building-possibly a traditional hanok castle or manor house. I run my fingers along the uneven stone wall, sending a silent pleas that the braided lock of hair Sejeong gave me will bring us luck.

Sehun stops in front of an arched door. He loads a dart tipped with Angels' Dream into a blowpipe and we follow suit. When we're all ready and braced, he grabs the door latch and snuffs out his candle. For two seconds we're cast into complete darkness, a circumstance that caused me to panic an hour ago but that now feels a million times safer than whatever is on the other side of the door.

Sehun cracks the door ever so slowly and a small silver of light appears. Without hesitation he sticks the wooden pip through half inch of space and blows on it. He throws the door open and in one fluid motion runs for the stumbling guard, catching him right before he hits the ground. The three of us emerge from the staircase and I help Sehun lower the guard silently to the floor.

We scan what appears to be an extensive wine cellar, blowpipes in hand. There are no other guards in sight, which strikes me as odd. Why only one guard? Are the Tigers so confident that no ones would have the guts to break in, or that their door is so well hidden that most people wouldn't find it? Sehun and I make eye contact and I can tell he's wondering the same thing.

We move methodically across the room between the rows of wine barrels, pausing intermittently to listen, but the cellar is unnerving quiet. I keep hoping I'll spot a pathway that will lead us to another part of the basement and to the dungeon itself, but no such luck. There are only wine, stone walls, and one flight of stairs. Lisa takes the lead, creeping upward with grace.

She stops at the door at the top of the stairs, crouching on the ground to peer under it. Four seconds pass and she stands back up, holding up two fingers, which I'm assuming means there are two guards. She taps her blowpipe and points to her right, then she taps Rosé's and point to her left, mapping out a plan of execution.

She lifts the latch slowly, careful not to let the metal creak. The instant the latch unhooks, she throws the door open. Lisa and Rosé bolt through and a half a second later I hear the whizzing sound of two darts. Sehun and I are right behind them and we each run for a guard. I barely got ahold of mine, swaying under his weight, and place him silently on the floor. My pulse sounds in my head and my temples throb.

We pause once again to assess our surroundings. We're in what I would consider an antiqued version of a mudroom. There are iron hooks on the wall with hooded cloaks hanging from them, wooden shelves containing gloves and hats, and winter boots lined up against the wall in varied sizes. Everything is black and matches Strategia aesthetic. I gulp. The number of items in this room suggests a large household and I'm willing to bet that this isn't the only entrance or the only mudroom in this place.

Rosé quickly makes her way to the archway leading into the estate. She peers around the stone and, after a beat, waves us to follow her. And we do, but not before I take another look at the passed-out guards. With all these cloaks, why aren't we seeing more of them? This feels too easy.

I follow my friends into a wide hallway lit by sconces and hung with oversized paintings of serious-looking men and women posed with tigers. The ceilings are so high that the painting looms above us, requiring us to strain our necks if we want to look at them. But maybe that's the point-grandeur and intimidation.

Rosé slows as we approach a tall archway. She peers around it, waits a moment, and gestures us to follow. I look through the archway into what appears to be an empty study with a fireplace and a large desk. And we keep moving past a sitting room, two hallways, a music room, and three closed doors. I knot it's the middle of the night, but the emptiness seems out of place and it's starting to give me a sinking feeling.

Rosé pauses again before another archway with an open door, this one bigger than the ones before it. She peers inside and once again waves us on. I peek inside on the way past and my heart nearly stops-it's a large room not unlike the dining hall at the Academy, with fancy tapestries and portraits on the stone walls. The realization creeps up on me slowly, like a spider you didn't know was on your arm. My dream! This reminds me of the room from my dream with all the dead bodies-the dead bodies of my friends. I immediately break out in a sweat. I want to call out to them, to tell them we have to turn around, but I just stand there unable to form words. Sehun grabs my hand, pulling me forward. I open my mouth to warn him, but he shakes his head as we move toward Rosé and the door she's standing next to at the end of the corridor.

Unlike the other doors we've seen so far, this one has large iron brackets on either side, the kind you would put a wooden bar through. And it has a keyhole. These extra security measures spark a flutter of hope in my chest. There are very few rooms that would require security, and one of them is definitely a dungeon. By the look on Sehun's face, I can tell he, too, thinks we may have found it.

Despite the progress we're making, I can't shake off the image of the room from  my dream. "My nightmare, Sehun, I saw -" I breathe, but Rosé gives me a death stare.

"One more word and I'll knock you out with a blowdart," she whispers back, and looks through the keyhole.

And I believe her. I shut my mouth and glance over my shoulder, certain there is some great danger lurking there. Rosé stands and makes eye contact with each one of us, as if to make sure we're ready. Sehun gives her a nod and she turns back around. She presses on the latch with painstaking slowness, moving it only a millimeter at a time, her face scrunched in concentration.

The latch unhooks. Only Rosé doesn't crack the door like Sehun did, she pulls it fully open. One the other side a guard is whipping around to face us. I strike him with a dart in the neck and Rosé grabs him by his shirt. But he's big, and as his legs go out, Rosé stumbles forward under his weight. I lunge, grabbing his arm, and together we lean him against the wall.

Rosé winks at me. I don't understand how she could possibly be relaxed enough to have a wink in her. We slink down the stairs side by side, blowpipes in hand and ready for more guards.

At the bottom of the stairs there's a narrow hallway and at the end of it is another door with a metal grate that forms a crude window, and no door handle. We crouch low and move toward the door as fast as possible.

Sehun cautiously looks through the grate and drops back down to face us. He and Rosé starts gesturing and pointing. It takes me a couple of seconds before I realize they're speaking in sign language, or arguing, from the looks of it. And by the way they point, I'm fairly certain it has to do with the no-door-handle issue and how the heck we're going to open it. But whatever conflict, it resolves quickly and Sehun pulls out a metal hook tied to a piece of black cord.

Sehun counts down on his fingers-three, two, one. And Rosé pops up from her crouch. She sticks her blowpipe through the window and I hear the familiar whizzing sound of her dart. Two seconds later there's thud. Sehun stands in the same instant, slipping the hook through the iron grate. He jiggles it for a moment and pulls. Metal clicks and the door unlatches.

Sehun pulls it open and we cautiously go through. We step onto the dirty stone floor, and the smell nearly knocks me over-damp rot, urine, and hay. I gag silently and inspect te cells on either side of me. We pass two that are empty and one that contains a skeleton hunched in the corner. Bones protrude from the person's torn clothing and iron shackles hang loose around the wrists. I turn away, wishing I had never looked in the first place. Appa, where are you?

We reach the end of the hallway and there are two archways to choose from. Sehun and Rosé negotiate with sign language once more, resulting in me and Sehun taking the archway on the right and Rosé and Lisa taking the one on the left.

Sehun and I creep along the filthy stone, and once again the absence of more guards is unnerving. Appa's supposed to be some big prize for Taecyeon, and yet this dungeon is practically empty. Wouldn't Taecyeon have this place on lockdown?

We approach a large cell on our right and my breath catches in my throat. On the far side, slumped on the floor with his arms and legs in chains and his head hanging, is appa. I run to the cell door, gripping the wrought iron and fighting back a sob. Appa's face and clothes are streaked with blood.

Sehun slips his lock-picking tools into the lock, making the faintest clicking sound, and appa's head whips up. The moment he sees me, his eyes widen like he can't believe I'm here. He left me that note; did he not think I would come? But the look of surprise and panic on his face is unmistakable.

Appa shakes his head. "Run!" he mouths without making a sound.

Sehun puts away his tools and slowly pulls on the cell door; even at his glacial pace, the metal whines.

And then we hear it-a girl's scream.

Sehun abandons his attempt to be quiet, throwing open the cell door.

"Run!" appa commands, this time aloud, but before he can get out another word and before Sehun and I can set foot in his cell, ten guards rush into the passageway, surrounding us.

Sehun and I lefts our blowpipes and I grab the lightning poison from my belt.

"I would reconsider if I were you," says a man's voice.

The guards part in front of us, making way for an older man with black-and-silver styled hair. Taecyeon. He has the same jaw and eyes as appa. His movements are neat and precise, like his black clothes, and he appears to be in no particular rush.

Behind Taecyeon are seven more guards, including the tall bouncer from the pub, who has Lisa's limp body slung over his shoulder. Meanwhile a short, stocky guard holds a knife to Rosé's throat.

"You look surprised, granddaughter, although I don't know how you could be," Taecyeon says, and the word granddaughter hits me like a punch to the gut. His boisterous demeanor from the ball is missing, replaced by a more conservative, almost professional air. But his charisma is still present-he is a natural leader who doesn't need to shout but can command you with a mere look. "Did you think I wouldn't be waiting?"

Suddenly it all makes sense, the lack of guards at the entrance, the clear path to the dungeon. I scan the passageway. We are so vastly outnumbered that fighting isn't an option; even is Sehun and I could hold on our own, they would kill Rosé and Lisa before we could do anything about it.

"Just kill him, Suzy," Rosé spits, her anger in sharp contrast to Taecyeon's comfortable confidence. But even if I were willing to let her and Lisa die to attempt it, there's no good path forward. Throwing my knife isn't an option. The guards would cut me down before it left my hand.

Taecyeon frowns at Rosé like he's disappointed. "And I thought we were getting along so nicely these past few days."

I'm looking from Taecyeon to Rosé, trying to decipher the meaning of his words, when I hear the faint clicking of botts on stone. Around the corner comes Kyungsoo, his bald head with speckles of short black hair, a healing burn on his cheeks, and a satisfied smile on his lips. My eyes widen.

"You treacherous little -" Rosé seethes, but Taecyeon cuts her off.

"Enough, Rosé," Taecyeon says without raising his voice. "It only stands to reason that someone who readily betray their friends deserves betrayal in return." It's a simple statement, one made without fanfare or overenunciate words, as though he were discussing nothing more than the weather, but it bowls us all over like a tidal wave.

Rosé's mouth hangs open and we all stare at her. Has Rosé been speaking to Taecyeon-has she been planning this with Kyungsoo from the start? Was Sehun right about her all along? The force of the realization nearly knocks the wind out of me.

"How ing dare you!" Rosé manages, and looks like she might fight him, regardless of the knife pressed to .

Kyungsoo watches her struggle.

Rosé's face turns bright red, and she slams her boot into the shin of the guard who's restraining her. Taecyeon flicks his hand and the guard knocks her so hard in the head that she slumps in his arms. I glance at Sehun, who looks like his worst fears are coming true.

Taecyeon returns his eyes to me, examining my frozen stance, with the vial of lightning poison in one hand and a blowpipe in the other. "I think it's time you put those down, don't you?" he says, like I'm a child who brought my slingshot to the breakfast table. "Or are you going to fight to the death here and now?"

I look over my shoulder to appa, who's watching every word and every movement but hasn't interjected. His eyes are full of frustration, and somehow I understand him. Taecyeon would probably use Appa's concern as an invitation to hurt me.

"He can't help you, Suzy," Taecyeon says.

I look back at Taecyeon whose placid expression hasn't wavered, and as I meet his eyes, I feel as thought I've shrunk.

"I'll put my weapons down if you'll let the rest of them go," I say, forcing myself to maintain eye contact.

Taecyeon sighs. "A compromise is essentially a loss. I never barter," he says, and pauses. "And tell me, what is it that you're threatening me with in that tiny vial?"

My eyes flit to the poison, terrified of handing it over to Taecyeon.

"It seems I've made a very simple request that you are unable to fulfill. Maybe we should use it on the girl with bangs to give you incentive to move things along?" He gestures to Lisa and my heart jumps into my throat.

"Angels' Dream," I lie.

Taecyeon tilts his head, reading me, and it's obvious by the way Kyungsoo smirks that they both know I'm lying.

I drop the vial and blowpipe, but to my display the small vial stays intact. Sehun follows my lead and drops his blowpipe and his knife. And in the last act of defiance, I stamp on the glass, smashing the poison and grinding it into the damp floor.

Taecyeon looks me in the eye, and for just a moment his calm expression turns threatening. Then he sighs, like he's thought better of it. "I'm surprised your father never taught you that an undisciplined mind only leads to suffering."

"I hope he burns you alive," Kyungsoo murmurs, clearly still bitter about the fire I started in his smithy.

Before I can open my mouth to respond, there is a sharp pain near my temple and the world goes black.