It was some time before the sisters managed to dislodge the grate. Tess was getting frustrated and impatient, but Marina had struggled to lift her. And when they swapped roles so that Marina sat on Tess's shoulders instead, she still had difficulty moving the grate. But it was not impossible.

"There! Ha!" exclaimed Marina once she finally managed to shove the grate away from the sewage entrance. They were beyond lucky that it hadn't been bolted down. Breathing heavily, she gripped the stone floor above. Tess grabbed her ankles to help push Marina up and out of the sewer. Marina kicked Tess in the face by accident.

"Ow! Marina!" hissed Tess.

"I'm sorry – this is a bit difficult in a dress," Marina shot back. She managed to roll onto the ground, and then leaned back into the hole to pull Tess up too. Tess's weight very nearly dragged Marina straight back down, but somehow, both sisters eventually managed to make it out of the sewer.

It took Marina a moment to take in their surroundings. They were in a wide, arched cellar. Wine casks lined the walls, as did thick cobwebs. The floor was cold under her bare feet – she had discarded her heels a while ago – but at least it was dry. There appeared to be no electrical lighting, so Marina's vision was limited only to what the light from her shae band could reach. And from what she saw, it appeared as if no one had visited this room in a very long time.

"Where are we?" she asked, quietly.

Tess adjusted her backpack and flicked dark sludge from her sleeve. "Lenny's basement," she answered.

"His basement?" hissed Marina.

"Yes, his basement – what did you expect? That we could just waltz up to the front door and say 'Oh hi, Mr. Rocha, can Connor come out and play now? Sorry about that goon you set on us earlier. He got kinda sleepy and had to take a little nappy nap.' Do you really think that would have gone over well?"

"Spare me your snark, Tess," snapped Marina.

Tess snorted and fiddled with the shoulder straps of her backpack. "It's his second basement, actually," she added. "This room wasn't originally part of his apartment. It got coopted in a couple hundred years ago. I'm still not really sure why or what its purpose was, but it was being used as a wine cellar back when Nelda Crane owned this place." She gave one of the broken wine casks a light, thoughtful nudge with her foot and muttered, "Looks like her favorite vintage is still here. I guess Lenny hasn't made a whole ton of changes then."

Marina frowned. Nelda Crane? This was the second time that she'd heard her sister mention that name. She still did not understand this...this idea that Tess's mind was now filled with foreign memories. Every time that it was mentioned, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up straight.

"Tess," she said quietly, but before Marina could add anything further, Tess shrugged off her backpack and let it drop to the ground. Bastet hissed unhappily from within.

"What was that forrrr, human?"

"Marina and I need a quick sister-conference. Just some boy-talk – we'll be right back," quipped Tess. She grabbed Marina's wrist and dragged her across the room, through a thick wood door which she promptly slammed behind them, and halfway up a stone staircase. By the time they finally stopped, Marina's head was spinning from the sudden announcement and change in scenery. She gawked at her sister.

"What the – Tess, what in Founders' names –" she sputtered, but Tess clamped a hand over her mouth, hushing her.

"Shhh – Bastet can probably still hear us even from here, but I can't risk just leaving her somewhere far away," whispered Tess so quietly that Marina strained to hear her.

Tess bounced uncertainly on the balls of her feet for a moment. Then, suddenly, she sat down and let her head drop into her hands. Marina joined her.

"I don't know what I'm doing, and I'm the worst person to have gotten stuck with these memories. If I get things wrong, everyone in Heart is going to die," breathed Tess. Marina frowned and wrapped her arms around Tess's shoulders. They were tense. Tess's whole body was rigid.

"Tess," she began, tentatively, "We're just here for Connor, remember? If this is about the Dwellers, we'll be fine. The sub-cities are all on high alert. It's...it's unfortunate what's happening in the mines and Flores Greens, but I've yet to hear of any active cases of bloodrot back home, so there is still hope on that front."

Tess was watching Marina closely, as if trying to decide on what to say and how to say it. Finally, she leaned in close to Marina's ear and whispered, "There are three things that I need you to know: firstly, Heart is littered with undocumented access points."

A chill crept up the back of Marina's neck, but Tess kept whispering. 

"Didn't you find it strange how you'd never heard of the exit that Connor took you through to get to me back at the Greens? Or how I managed to get into Central even though the sub-cities are supposedly all on high alert? Fenrir hid them to satisfy his need for control. The newer sub-cities might be ok since they've got the fewest hidden access points, but in older sub-cities, they're everywhere. Places like Central are doomed when it comes to bloodrot." She paused for a moment to let that sink in before continuing.

"And secondly, Lenny's got his own stake in all of this, which is why I'm worried about Connor. I still don't know what I'm going to do about him though."

Marina looked sharply at her sister. "What kind of stake could Leonard Rocha possibly have in all of this?"

Tess grimaced. "Fenrir wanted a different host, and Lenny fit the bill. Lenny actually wants to be a host."

Marina didn't have an answer for that, nor did she quite understand what Tess was saying. Tess took a deep breath and dropped her voice to an even quieter whisper.

"And that leads into the third thing that you need to know," she said. "Well, and the fourth, now that I think about it. Once a Dweller chooses a host, they're trapped in it. A Dweller can't leave by choice, but their host can force them out. Fenrir had been trying for years to drive Rourke into doing just that, but Rourke chose to let me kill him instead. Since humans don't do too well under a Dweller's influence, that just left me standing with Fenrir's memories. And now we've got this mess." 

She took a deep breath and forged on. "Matteo Rocha's cure needs to be manufactured using blood taken directly from a Dweller to avoid Rochagorosis. Matteo didn't have access to that fifty years ago, so he was forced to make do with using spores from already-infected people. I don't know if you'll be able to convince Bug to expel Bastet on her own, but a heavy dose of adrenaline might do the trick."

"What do you mean by 'a heavy dose?'"

"As much as it takes."

"Tess, I am not putting my cat at risk for cardiac arrest for some half-baked guess of yours." Marina was horrified that Tess would even suggest it. 

"Yes, you will." Tess gripped Marina's arm tightly. "And it's not a half-baked guess. I'm right. Nelda and Matteo were right. Please don't waste this. I know is that Matteo Rocha's notes are here, and I will be getting my hands on them. Once that's done, you need to get yourself, those notes, and Bastet to a lab and...and...I don't know – do your thing. Just, by the Founders, please do not even think about letting Bastet out of that speela tank unless you're absolutely certain that you can contain her spores."

Without warning, Tess stood once more and yanked Marina back up with her. She started marching down the stairs, back towards the cellar where her backpack with the trapped Dweller still lay on the ground. Marina caught up to her.

"And what will you do then?" she asked. Tess pretended to ignore her, but Marina caught her shoulder. "Tess, you have no idea what you are asking of me, do you?"

Not all labs were created equal, and even though Marina still had access to one of the University's biochem labs from when she was still a student, none of the equipment in that particular location could be used for high-level containment. And that, she suspected, was exactly what she would need. Nor was she trained in all lab skills that might be required of her. It had been quite some time since she had last done any strict labwork, and there was no telling what procedures might be outlined in Dr. Rocha's notes.

Marina could work efficiently when she knew what she was doing, but to dive headlong into the unknown? This was a disaster waiting to happen.

Out of habit, she began to gnaw on a nail until she remembered that they had just come up through the sewers. Marina dropped her hand and wiped her already-sweaty palm on her dress.

Tess gave her an impish half-grin. "Hey, you're the pharmacist. I'm not. Oh, and if anything goes wrong in here, get out of here as quick as possible."

Tess threw that last line over her shoulder at Marina before dashing down the stairs two at a time and emerging from the cellar moments later with her backpack in her grip. She handed the backpack – hissing cat and all – off to Tess and gestured for them to head back up the stairs.

"And what, pray tell, could you possibly expect to go wrong during the home invasion of Leonard Rocha's apartment?" grumbled Marina.

"Anything and everrrrrything, I prrrresume," said Bastet from within the backpack. Tess snorted, but Marina frowned. She slowed her hike up the stairs until Tess had a slight lead on her before speaking to the Dweller. She wanted to have a conversation with the creature who had been spending so much time with Tess.

"Bastet," she said quietly, "What is happening to my sister? She is different than she was."

"Only what is expected, I suppose. Yourrr sisterrr did kill her Dweller and his host."

"So I've heard," said Marina. "I assume that this has happened before?"

"Only once that I am awarrrre of," replied Bastet. When Marina pressed for more information, the Dweller refused to say anything further. They passed the landing for the main basement and crept up the stairs to the main floor.

"And what, exactly, have you been telling my sister?" asked Marina, finally. "The two of you must have spoken. You spent quite a bit of time alone together. And I could have sworn that I heard you whispering in the sewers, even if my attention was elsewhere at the time."

Bastet chuckled. "I have said nothing that was untrrrrue," she said.

They came to where Tess was crouched on the first-floor landing. There was an open door across the hall that they would have to pass by. Inside, a man was arguing loudly with someone who could only seem to reply in brief, subdued sentences. A shaft of yellow light fell out through the doorway and pooled across the hallway floor. Shadows moved across it. Tess watched these with rapt attention.

"I'm telling you, he's always had a few screws loose, but this is too much – holed up here for two weeks? Not telling anyone from the company where he was or why? Until today, I had thought that he was still trapped in the Greens doing Founders-know-what! And now he's refusing to see me?"

"He is a partial owner of Rocha Pharmaceuticals, and when Mr. Rocha Sr. deems him fit to take over –"

"That's exactly the point! He should never be 'deemed fit' – that would be the worst possible thing to happen. The kid's a business school drop-out. Look at these expenses. What even is this?"

"Watch your tongue, Thomas."

The shadows moved away from the doorframe, followed by a loud thunk of a hand being slammed against a desk.

"I am the third lab director that you people have cycled through in the past five years, and if you think that I am going to watch my tongue when this company is on the verge of falling into the hands of a lunatic, then you can kiss my a – "

Tess chose that moment to grip Marina's wrist and drag her into the hall and past the open door. They darted further and further down the hall until the voices had faded almost completely.

"Here we are," said Tess when they finally stopped before a nondescript wooden door. The only thing that set it apart from other doors along this hall was the keypad lock set into the wall next to it. She cracked her knuckles and hovered over the lock. "Please tell me that he didn't change the code," she breathed.

"Perrrrhaps you should hurry," said Bastet from Marina's back. "My rrrrats say that one of my kin approaches. Wouldn't that be unforrrrtunate?"

Tess whipped her head towards Marina and Bastet and narrowed her eyes. Then, without further hesitation, she punched in the code.