The fire inside him snuffed out, drenched and wet and cold. The residual smoke pushed against his skin, seeking for an escape he couldn’t give it.
“You’re not going to take me in her place.” He sounded like a little boy.
She offered him a lopsided, cynical smile. “Like I said, Mr. Comf. Contact me when you have the money.” She waved a hand toward the guard behind Rone, who opened the door leading back to the world of the living. It took a long moment before Rone found the strength to pry himself from that chair, his fingers still pressed hard into the amarinth. The only means he might have to get his mother out, if he wasn’t swindled then, too.
He felt the warden grin at his back.
Rone wasn’t finished with her yet.
Sandis went through all of Rone’s cupboards, hoping she could cook something for him—did she remember how to cook?—but the man lived like a true bachelor. He didn’t have much in there—not for baking, at least. He seemed to be decently well off. He’d never told her what he did for work, had he?
Where had he learned to fight like that, anyway?
Giving up that venture, Sandis decided to clean instead. The flat was tidy, but there was dirt in the edges where floor met wall, spiderwebs in the window, and a ring in the tiny tin tub they’d both used yesterday. She found only vinegar to clean with, but it worked. She cracked a window, leaving the curtains closed, to air out the smell.
After that, she dared to step out of the flat. She scoured the street below, pulling her shirt collar over her nose to hide her face. She didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. She climbed onto the roof and looked again. Maybe they hadn’t been followed this time. Maybe Sandis had truly gotten away.
Five stories up. Sandis’s heart quickened as she remembered the fall from the clock tower. Could that be the secret to losing the grafters once and for all? Faking her death? It would have to be believable. Kazen’s men had seen her survive that fall, so they knew something was keeping her safe.
Did Kazen suspect she had an amarinth?
Sandis shuddered. If he did, he’d want her even more. Want Rone, too.
She’d tried to warn Rone to stay away. She was glad he hadn’t listened, but she couldn’t allow any harm to come to him on her behalf.
She’d have to make her death believable for the grafters, which would mean concealing her body from their eyes. But how? A fire? Water? She could do it in one of the canals that sectioned off the city’s districts . . . but no, she couldn’t go there. Not anymore. Not after what happened to Anon.
A thud startled her, and she turned to see Rone behind her. He must have leapt from the southwest building. His face was long and tired and looked older than his years, which she guessed to be around twenty-five. On closer inspection, his eyelids were heavy and his cheeks sallow. He hunched like he’d been whipped.
He looked like someone who’d had a nightmare and was still waking up.
“What happened?” she tried, her voice tiny.
Rone paced a moment. Sighed. “I think I can get into the records building, but we’ll have to wait until tonight. Can you write? More specifically, spell?”
Sandis studied him. His stance, his inability to look her in her eyes—all of it told her he was angry. Hurt. She’d seen it with the other vessels, the men especially. Something terrible had happened in his visit.
It was evident from his evasion that Rone didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t have the right to press, so she simply nodded.
“Good. I’ll need you to write down the exact spelling of the guy you want to look up, as well as any pertinent relations—”
“I’m coming.”
Rone crooked an eyebrow. “No, you’re not.”
Sandis didn’t want to hurt him more, but she couldn’t stand to remain in one spot while the grafters lurked close by. Taking a step toward him, she implored, “Please, Rone, let me come. I can help if I’m there in person. The name wasn’t always Gwenwig.” She tugged at her memories of her father. He’d told her about the name change late one night after a shift at the cotton factory. “I think it was originally Gwender?”
Rone rubbed a crease from his forehead. “I don’t think it’s a good idea—”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
The words rushed out of her unbidden, spoken so quietly she wouldn’t have thought Rone had heard them had he not paused. He studied her for a moment before his shoulders slackened. “Fine. Fine.”
Sandis smiled, but the joy of her success receded as reality pushed into her thoughts. “We should go soon. It’s safer from the grafters during the day, when the police are out and there are witnesses.”
“Trust me.” He looked at her pointedly. “It will be better to go at night. It will be harder for them to follow us.”
Sandis skewed her brow. “How?”
A slightly sadistic smile touched Rone’s lips. “You might want to bring a change of clothes.”
Sandis didn’t have a change of clothes, since she refused to wear her old shirt. From the jerky movements and muted grunts Rone made as he packed extras of his clothes in an oiled waterproof canvas bag, she could tell he was annoyed.
“We’re not . . . going in the canal, are we?” Sandis asked. Her voice quavered.
“No.” He pulled the strings on the sack tight and glanced at her. “You can swim, right?”
She nodded. “Well enough.”
Rone slung the bag over his shoulder and blew out the candle. Shadows engulfed the flat. Again, he led her up to the rooftop. They took a different route, hopping buildings for maybe a tenth of a mile before Rone descended to the street.
They were nowhere near the Innerchord.
Rone paused for a moment, looking around—or, more so, looking down, like the cobblestones held some secret Sandis could not determine. He back-stepped and glanced down an alley. “This way.”
Sandis held her breath as Rone led her down a narrow road constricted by brick buildings. It looked eerily similar to the one the slavers had driven her down four years ago.
The alley ended at an iron fence. Despite the darkness—only the last indigo wisps of twilight glimmered through the polluted clouds—flies were active. Their buzzing jumbled in Sandis’s ears. She smelled the overflowing garbage bin before she spotted it. No trash carrier had been down here for a long time.
The scraping of metal and stone drew her attention back to Rone. He crouched, moving something—a manhole cover.
The faint smell of feces wafted up from the slow-flowing water beneath. He felt around under the cover, then cursed.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, checking over her shoulder.
“It’s a drop-off point. Where those in the know can leave me tips for jobs.” He set the manhole cover aside instead of replacing it. “Might as well start here.”
Sandis eyed the manhole, then the sack with the extra clothes.
“You’re joking,” she whispered.
“Once upon a time, it was my job to clean these suckers,” he explained. “There’s a whole network underground that very few know about—including policemen and, I assume, grafters.”
Sandis inched closer. Squinted to see better.
“How well do you know your history?”
She swallowed. “Decently.”
“This whole place is built on abandoned Noscon ruins. They built their colonies with the earth, while Kolins forced the earth to comply with their architecture.”
Sandis’s stomach turned as she took a step back from the manhole. “I don’t understand your point.”
“Everything up here is flat. Everything down there is not.”
“And?”
“Closer to the newer areas of the city, it’s a tight squeeze. Move away from the wall and toward the Innerchord, and the sewers open up. They cover the entire city, even the poorest parts. Do you want to find this guy’s record or not?”
Sandis listened to the flowing water. She was getting used to the smell, at least. She glanced at Rone’s bag. Nodded.