“I did. What you asked,” Titus said, straining against the shovel. “Leave these. Icaruses. Be.”

“Marcus trusted you!” Will heard himself cry out.

The Butler shook his head. “Thing is, now I’m the one having trouble trusting Corpsey. I’m worried that perhaps he didn’t manage things quite in the manner I would prefer.”

The Butler had the glass close to Titus’s face as Claymore tightened his grip. “Now you’ll show me proof that you did what I asked,” the Butler said, lifting the glass an inch from Titus’s lips, “or else you’re about to take a nice, long drink of history.”

Titus glanced at Will, his face veiny crimson and for a fleeting moment innocent and soft, the same vulnerability Will had found on his mother’s face a thousand times Inside, and even despite what Titus had done, Will couldn’t help but pity him.

Titus turned his eyes to the water and shuddered.

“Show us,” Claymore growled in his ear, “and we’ll leave you all be.”

Slowly, Titus extended his lips and put them on the glass, slurping loud and long. He closed his eyes and gulped, his throat constricting as the Butler tipped it up, spilling water over his cheeks until it was empty.

“Tasty,” Titus said with a stifled shiver.

The Butler threw the glass, smashing it on the wooden floor. “Downstairs,” he said.

They untied the boys, bound them again by the wrists and dragged them back down the stairs.

“All this concrete,” the Butler tutted as they descended the staircase, “not even worth the money it would cost in dynamite to blow them up.”

When they came to the lower level, Claymore pushed Titus to the ground amid the mangle of animal remnants and industrial litter. Then the Butler gave a nod, and Claymore grabbed Jonah roughly and dragged him over to one of the yawning grain chutes. “Okay, Corpsey, since you clearly don’t care much about yourself … perhaps this will persuade you,” he said, crouching over Titus. “How about we drop your precious workers into the bins. Just for old times’ sake. Starting with the Turtle boy?”

Claymore roughly pushed Jonah backwards over the hole then grabbed the belt that held up his baggy work pants, leaning him back on his heels. Somewhere down in the chute came a sick rustling, and Will remembered what Titus had said about rats craving protein.

“Don’t,” Will pleaded, with a painful lurch in his gut.

“Don’t be scared, son,” Claymore hissed at Jonah.

“You should stay off the Neverclear ’cause your breath is like a gallbladder right now,” Jonah said, but it was weak, his words suffused with panic.

Will watched Jonah’s arms swing to recapture his balance and remembered his drawings and his basement tent room and how neat his bookshelf was kept and how fearful he’d been of dying before Will had dragged him down here, and it broke Will with despair. “Your map is in his hand,” Will cried out. “Take it and leave him alone.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter anymore,” the Butler said, sighing as Claymore retracted Jonah and ripped the map from his grip, stuffing it in his own coat. “The merciful thing about my business is one never has to worry about demand, only supply,” the Butler said as Claymore drove Jonah back over the hole. “Luckily, our stills have already caught up.”

“Remember the old days, Corpsey?” the Butler said to Titus. “When men used to line up for the privilege of going down into those bins. You were particularly skilled at it, if I recall. Had a few scrapes with an early burial. This old elevator has been swallowing Thunder Bay’s bravest young men since time began.”

“You hurt. That boy,” said Titus from the floor. “I’ll see you buried. In the ground. Where you stand.”

“In three feet of concrete?” said the Butler, scuffing his shoe on the floor. “Not likely.”

Claymore released Jonah’s belt and grabbed the pelt of his bangs, leaning him farther over the hole. Jonah cried out and grabbed Claymore’s hand to keep his hair from being torn out, shutting his eyes, his foot knocking a rusty bolt down into the hole with a long clatter, and Jonah let out a pitiful screech.

“Oh come on, you’re tough boys. I watched you two fight off my wolf that day at the school. Didn’t realize it till after we ran into you down here,” Claymore said to Jonah, letting out some of his hair. Will had watched his friend withstand skateboard falls that would’ve shattered seasoned gladiators or stunt men, but he knew his friend had never fallen nearly this far.

“Oh, Corpsey,” the Butler said, his palm over his open mouth mockingly, “I’m afraid someone else is about to have a terrible accident at Pool Six …”

“Stop,” Titus barked, his face pained. “I didn’t. Sink. Aurelius. Like I. Told you. I buried. Him. Unbind me and. I’ll unearth. Him.”

“Didn’t want to sully the old harbor any more than you already have, huh Corpsey?” the Butler said, grinning as he leaned over to untie Titus, still holding the shovel at his side, ready to swing. “Show me.” Claymore drew Jonah back upright, cinching his bristling arm around the boy’s throat.

Titus crawled over to a large hopper, fed by pipes that snaked from above like some terrible musical instrument. “Buried him in the grain, did you?” the Butler said. “Isn’t grain marvelous?” he added, addressing Will. “The way it can build a city like Thunder Bay, the way it can earn a man a good living and feed a family? And the way it can aid the forgetting when all that is lost.” Titus rose to grab a wooden lever and dropped it. A spout leapt open and out burst a stream of golden grain that Will couldn’t identify. They watched it quickly build an enormous conical pile in the center of the room. “He’s. In here,” said Titus when the hopper had emptied and the taupe tornadoes of dust had dissipated. “But I’ll need one. Of those shovels.”

“Not likely,” the Butler said, taking a quick swig from his bottle. “Dig with your hands.”

Hacking and blue faced, Titus climbed painfully up the side of the mound and began scooping grain like a dog preparing its bed. “Still champagne wheat in here, isn’t it, Corpsey?” the Butler said, running a handful through his fingers. “Not even sprouted after all these years. Shame nobody wants it. All those starving children in the world. But I’ll find a use for it.”

Titus dug as Will fought a mist of tears and strained against his ropes to no avail. Then Titus uncovered a large, green canvas duffle. He blew the grain dust out of the zipper before grinding it back as the Butler approached, his eyes zapping with delight. Titus reached inside the bag and drew out a large glass jar of water and a stack of paintings that looked curiously like Will’s masterpieces. “He’s gone,” Titus bellowed. “I put him on a lakeboat. A saltie. A favor from. A man I once knew. You’ll never find. Aurelius. He’s safe. Now.”

“That’s unfortunate, Corpsey,” the Butler said and Claymore grabbed Jonah by the shoulders and with wrath in his eyes prepared to send him headfirst into the open hole.

“Will, what’s going on?” said a woman’s voice from behind them.

Everyone turned, and Will saw before him an unsteady figure that was familiar in such an overwhelming manner that it was impossible to grasp completely. Her face was fierce and shining, and she looked afraid in her old nightgown, filthy from the elevator’s walls. The Butler scoffed and started pacing toward this person, this woman, and at that moment Will saw something grand and terrible cross her face. As he drew near, she reached and snapped a bracelet on her wrist, her eyes stewing with fright, but also indignant, furious, her body coiling, about to cry out, either in pain or in fear or in rage—it was impossible to tell. And it was then that Titus exploded from the pile of grain toward them. Since he’d been Outside, Will had seen people grab cats in this way, but only at the back of the neck, never the front, and cats seemed to enjoy it, because there was so much skin back there, or they didn’t have any nerves there, or it reminded them of their mothers. But Will didn’t think the way Titus grabbed the Butler fell into this category—from the front, his fingers closed over the Butler’s windpipe like a bit of garden hose. The Butler dropped his shovel, and his pale hands flew up into the air like twin doves. Titus walked him back toward the opening of a chute. “I’ll make a wonderful. Mess. Out of you,” Titus said through his ruined lungs. “You reconnoiter that?” The Butler’s stricken face was unmoving, but his eyes blinked in agreement. Titus drove him to the ground, pinning him on his back almost gently.