I wake up the next morning to the smell of good Underland food. I groan as the mouthwatering aroma turns me into a starving zombie looking for a meal, then crawl out of bed, not taking a moment to straighten my clothes or hair. I limp out to the main dining area of Vikus' quarters. Strangely, Luxa, Ripred, and Vikus aren't the only three at the table.
     When I enter the room three humans look up at me in surprise. Ripred just looks bored of course--he could probably smell me the moment I came in last night--but Vikus nearly chokes on his cup of water. Luxa's eyes widen with both surprise and happiness and she smiles at me before gently shoving the crown back on her head.
     Kel, on the other hand, the fourth member, looks annoyed and frustrated that I'm here. I'm finding it really hard to try and like him when he really seems to dislike me. Again I wonder why. I never did anything to him, never said anything to anger him--except for defeating him in training but everyone expected that--and yet he seems to hate me. I suddenly have the urge to talk to him alone, to ask him what his problem is. But that will have to wait until later.
     I grin back at Luxa and take a seat.
     "You finally decided to stop laying around in bed, did you?" Luxa smirks. "And now you have taken Nerissa's seat. Although I doubt she'll mind when she arrives."
"Oh, I'll move when she gets here." I dig into the Underland breakfast hungrily, and a few minutes later Nerissa's walks in. But she's not alone.
Henry trails behind her, a little nervous as his armed guard follows a few steps after.
     "Hey, you can wait outside." I say hurriedly to the guard. "We'll be alright in here."
     The guard glances to Luxa and Nerissa, obviously unsure if he should leave the Overlander alone with the royal family. But Luxa only rolls her eyes dramatically. "We shall be fine, Finnean. Thank you, but the Warrior is more than enough defense against this man."
     "As you wish, my Queen." Finnean bows his head and retreats to the hallway, out of sight and earshot.
     Henry gives me a grateful look. I rise from my seat and offer Nerissa the chair, which she graciously accepts. "Would you pull up a few more seats, Gregor?" She asks. "I believe it is time we had a discussion, and I should like...Henry to join us." She pauses a little before saying Henry's name, and the sorrow she conveys in those five letters isn't lost by anyone in the room. Even Henry seems to understand the significance as his cheeks redden and he hunches his shoulders a little. I'm reminded of the first few days I spent in the Underland, how everything was so foreign and unfriendly, and I feel a surge of pity for the man in front of us. He's just as alone as I was at the age of 11, but he has no little sister to hold and no father to look forward to seeing.
When we're all seated around the table, Ripred winks at me. "Just like the old days, huh boy? Everyone gathering around an ancient underground table to discuss a Prophecy about the Warrior saving their sorry hides."
"What, you're not included in the people I save?" I reply blandly.
Ripred just looks at me for a moment, tilts his head, then responds in a way I never thought he would. "No, I guess I am." Silence falls until Nerissa breaks it with reedy laugh.
"Just like the good old times indeed." She glances sideways at Henry. "Back to the matter at hand. Now that Gregor is well again, we must find the other Overland miners and stop them. We must ask your help in this matter, Henry. We cannot find them alone."
"Sure." Henry says quickly, eager to help. "What do you need to know?"
Nerissa props her elbows up on the table and clasps her hands, her posture unusually straight and strong. "Everything."

The miners usually visit the mines in groups of four or five. Henry's expedition with Marc and Joseph was unusually small because they were worried about being suspected of suspicious activities. And reasonably so. Five grown men crawling into a sewer every night? Just a tiny bit suspicious. And Henry thought that since three of the group went missing, the others might stick to groups of four for safety reasons. So they'd always have the same group members to trust.
     The men wouldn't give up just because a few guys went missing. They all wanted the diamonds really bad. Like bad enough to kill a thirteen year old kid. And so far they had only managed to free three gems from the stone. The first two they tried to get were accidentally dropped and lost forever in the Waterway.
A group of miners should be out tonight, and more than likely they'll be at the Alpha or Beta hole. (They named them in order from most promising to least, with Alpha having the most gems.) Alpha was the entrance we flew up through before, so the bats could easily find it again. Joseph was working in the Beta hole when we found them, practicing on a smaller gem before he took a bigger one in Alpha.
Henry wants to come with us to find his 'friends', and Luxa only agreed because he could help pacify the other miners, and, as Ripred put it, "Make sure they don't do any more damage to the Warrior. We couldn't survive a year in the Underland without him to fulfil another Prophecy."
I really hope there isn't another one.

And now we're planning to go after the other miners tonight. Out of the names Henry listed off only two have stuck with me: Dane and Richard. For some reason the names sound different, and I have the strange desire to talk to the two men immediately.
Vikus is adamant that we let Henry speak to the Overlanders alone first, to prevent anyone pulling a gun on us again. I can't agree more, and besides, Henry seems like a good man. I trust that he won't run out on us or have his friends kill us.
     Now all I have to do is sit and wait for Overland night to fall. This is definitely the hardest part about our plan.

     I spend the morning sitting in Luxa's quarters, alone with her, and talking about anything the comes to mind. I tell her about the time I tried to ride my bike down some stairs when I was six, and how I broke my arm and several fingers in the process; how I joined the school band because of my dad and fell in love with it immediately.
     "Will you show me this music sometime, Gregor?"
     "I'd love to. Maybe we could stop by a music shop on our pizza trip. I left my instrument in Virginia."
     Luxa tells me about how she saw a mouse (Overland-sized) in the laundry room one day when she came because she felt lonely.
     "I couldn't stay away from the laundryroom, even though I knew you were too far away to find me."
     "I'm never leaving again, Luxa. Don't you worry."
Around lunchtime Nerissa comes back with Henry, so it looks like we'll have another awkward meal. Thankfully Ripred isn't here though so there won't be any snarky remarks from him. But he always seems to make people laugh so maybe I do kind of miss him. Kind of.
"So where do you live, Henry?" I ask, trying to start a conversation.
"About a minute's walk from Central Park. How about you guys?" Henry cringes a little when he realized that in fact I'm the only one who doesn't live in the Underland. But thankfully Nerissa doesn't hold it against him.
"These are the royal quarters, and I reside here with Vikus. My cousin Luxa's has taken up residence here recently as well, so our homes aren't very interesting. But what is Central Park like? I have only heard the name."
"Well," Henry rubs his shoulder shyly and stops eating to speak. I don't really listen since I've lived in New York my whole life and know all about it. "Your home isn't really uninteresting. It's actually kind of amazing. Central Park is really pretty boring, you know, full of trees and surrounded by cheap stores."
"I have never seen an Overland tree." Nerissa muses. "I know only the visions of the jungle trees lit by the glowing streams."
     "Oh." Henry stumbles over his words, trying to figure out how to respond. "Well, uh, I could, you know, show you sometime." He looks at her nervously.
     "I would enjoy that," Nerissa nods formally. "But I do not think my skin could bear your sunlight, Overlander."
     "Call me Henry." Henry grins. Nerissa stiffens at his name, Luxa seems to fold in on herself in pain. I watch them all carefully, but Henry continues on obliviously. "And you could wear long sleeves. And gloves, sunglasses, a big hat. Or maybe we could just go out at night and get some pizza or something. Or we could... Hey, what's wrong?" He finally notices the change in mood. "Did I say something?"
     Nerissa swallows hard and folds her frail hands on the table. Her lips are pressed tightly together, and Luxa looks like she wants to run out of the room. I guess that leaves the story to me.
     "Henry, it's just, uh... Your name is--"
     "No." Nerissa interrupts.
     "Nerissa, we should tell him. Everyone is looking at him like he's a traitor and he should know--"
     "No." Nerissa looks at me intensely, not angry but not gentle either. "He does have a right to know, but it is not your right to tell him. That right is with Henry's sister."
     "My what?" Now Henry is even more confused. "I don't have a sister. What are you talking about?"
     "Not your sister Henry. Just listen." Nerissa sits up tall and takes a deep breath. She's more composed than I've ever seen her, and for once she doesn't look like a gust of wind could knock her down. She looks almost healthy. "About two years ago when Gregor first came to the Underland, I had a brother named Henry." The new Henry's eyes widen in shock and sympathy.
     "He was not very good, my brother. He wished to be powerful, to be a ruler, but he could not become King with Luxa as the heir. The Warrior went on a quest and Henry went with him. Henry betrayed the questers and allied with the gnawers. He tried to kill Gregor in the end, but he died."
     "I'm sorry." Henry says softly. He reaches across the table to take Nerissa's hands. She flinches a little and I suddenly wish I wasn't in the room. It feels like I'm intruding on a moment, me and Luxa.
     "Do not be." Nerissa sighs and slowly pulls her hands away. "He was never a very kind boy. But he was family." Nerissa blinks slowly. "Gregor, would you be so kind as to stay with Henry until you leave tonight? I'm tired and Finnean isn't very good company."
     "Yeah, no problem." I say, a little surprised at the change in subject.
     "I think I'll go too. Train some." Luxa hurriedly gets up to leave. I know Henry's name is bothering her and I want to follow her to talk about it, but now I'm stuck with Henry II.
     "Soooo..." I say when we're alone at the table. The food still has barely been touched. "Is there any place you want to see? Or anything you want to know about?"
     "Yeah, actually." Henry says eagerly. Like a kid excited about a new movie. "I have so many questions. Why are the bats so big? What's a gnawer? And twisters? What did you mean when you said you had a bond, what were the other prophecies you fulfilled? And how exactly did Henry die?" He takes a deep breath. "Sorry, I'm just pretty freaked out about this place and I really want to know what's going on."
I smile. Henry is like an older version of me when I first fell through the laundryroom grate.
"It's alright, I get it. How about we start with the bats? They're actually called fliers."