Had he been overconfident? Could the grafters know the literal underground so well? It was a big city, and a lot of people were employed in sewage. One of them could easily be a grafter, or sympathetic to one. Or enslaved by one.
But if this Kazen guy was so interested in recapturing Sandis, why would he have let her out of his sight in the first place?
He didn’t have time for this.
There were no streetlights over the nearest manhole, only cloud-filtered moonlight. Running his hand along the wall to feel for a ladder, Rone trudged toward it, frowning when his fingers found nothing but slick concrete and mold. The manhole wasn’t terribly high; if he jumped, he could dislodge the cover.
“What are you doing?” Sandis asked behind him.
“Can’t go back the way we came. There was a lurker in the courtyard. If we’re lucky, it was a thief.”
He didn’t bother to say, If we’re not, for the small gasp Sandis made told him she understood completely.
Good. They had no time to talk about that. Or about Sandis’s maybe stroke. Rone launched himself up and pushed both hands into the manhole cover, knocking it askew. Jumping again, he got his fingers over the lip of the manhole and pulled himself up.
Apparently it had rained only enough to tar the cobblestones with sludge. Not that Rone wasn’t covered in something similar. He checked for his amarinth, wrung out his sodden clothes as best he could without taking them off, then lay on his stomach and lowered his hands into the sewer.
Sandis’s fingers slid down his as she tried to get a solid grip. Water splashed up when she fell back down. Come on, come on. He couldn’t ditch her in the sewer. Even he wasn’t that despicable.
He thought of his mother and felt sick.
Sandis’s hands found his, and he grabbed them tightly enough to cut off blood flow. With a grunt, he hauled Sandis up until she got an elbow onto the street and could pull herself out the rest of the way. She slicked hair back from her face.
“Wring out, hurry.” Where would they go? He thought of a few places, including a tavern he’d holed up in a couple of times when jobs got too intense. He didn’t have his wallet on him, though. Would they take credit?
Sandis stood, her wet clothes sticking to her and making her look like a drowned mouse. Rone put a hand on the back of her shoulders and pushed her down a nearby street. He reached the end of it before realizing he’d forgotten to close the manhole cover.
He turned down another street, but Sandis grabbed his shirt and stopped him, shaking her head.
Rone stifled a groan. “There’s a guy I know who—”
“That leads right into Grim Rig’s territory. He hates beggars, and we don’t look much better.”
The name rang a bell—one of the local mob bosses. Rone nodded and chose a different way—a curving street with no rhyme or reason and a lot of foul-smelling garbage bins. There had to be a butcher nearby. Rotting meat had a very distinct and stomach-churning smell.
Rone guided them down another road, his footsteps slowing when he neared the end of it. He didn’t know this area very well, and the darkness made it that much worse. Lack of lamps, lack of homeless . . . this wasn’t a good sign.
Footfalls sounded somewhere ahead of them. Rone grabbed Sandis’s arm, guiding her back the way they’d come. She didn’t protest, which meant she didn’t know the area that well, either.
They got to an intersection. The sound of a clicking gun hammer filled the empty space.
Sandis turned around first and choked. Rone followed her lead.
Seven men stood gathered behind them, all in black, all large in stature except for the one in front. He was tall but lean, pole-like. He wore a black hat too elegant for the circumstances, and it was pulled down to shadow his eyes. Moonlight illuminated a long nose, wide mouth, and pointed chin, as well as the column of gold buttons trailing down his vest and silver ones trailing down his trench coat.
He was the only one without a visible firearm.
Sandis shook like an overheated boiler next to Rone. She mustn’t have exaggerated her importance to the grafters. He’d never heard of so many men being sent after one person.
Their network was extraordinary.
“I think this nonsense has gone on for long enough,” the man in the hat said. His form was unmoving, save for his mouth. Rone inched his hand toward his amarinth. “The sewers? Really, Sandis? I rescued you from those slavers, brought you into my home, and this is how you’ve chosen to repay me? And Mr. Rone Comf. Or should I say, Engel Verlad?”
Rone stiffened. They’d found him out so easily? A very good network. They likely knew his address as well. Possibly his history. And if they knew his history, they’d know he knew the sewers . . .
He and Sandis had never had a chance.
Rone could have been standing there naked and felt less exposed.
“We have to move.” Sandis’s voice was so muted and strained he barely heard it. “We have to go now.”
“Obviously,” Rone muttered. Two guns were trained on him.
Sandis grabbed his arm with both hands. She shook hard enough to make his teeth rattle. “That’s Kazen in front.”
The big bad. Great.
“Rone, if Kazen touches me, he’ll control me. We can’t let him touch me.”
“What?” Rone asked, a little too loudly.
Kazen shifted enough that Rone could see the bottom of one eye from beneath the brim of the hat. “I don’t appreciate being interrupted.”
“Yeah, well . . .” Rone squeezed the amarinth. Seven of them, at least six armed. How would he fight his way out of this? “I don’t like your hat.”
Sandis squeaked.
Kazen frowned, then took a step back. Behind him stood a petite, pale girl who could be no older than fifteen. There was a childish roundness to her face. Her blonde hair was cut in the same style as Sandis’s—straight across, about an inch above her shoulders.
Sandis gasped. “Alys.” Her nails dug into his arms.
He ignored the sting. “Who?”
He saw her throat bob as she swallowed. Her lips moved, but little more than air passed through them.
Rone didn’t understand, and he didn’t have time to sort out her fears. He didn’t know what to expect. He hated not knowing what to expect.
Kazen pushed the blonde girl forward. It was hard to be scared of someone Rone knew he could snap like rotted wood, but Sandis was stiff as steel next to him, her nails digging, digging— “Wait.” Sandis’s small voice seemed to shout in the tense space around them.
All eyes turned to her.
“I’ll come willingly.”
Rone hadn’t figured out a way to save them yet, but at the very least, he could spin the amarinth, pick up Sandis, and run . . . somewhere. “Sandis,” he hissed. What had she said to the grafters last time? That Kazen wouldn’t want holes in her?
They wouldn’t shoot her, for whatever reason. Maybe, if they split up— Kazen settled a limp hand on Alys’s shoulders and a smug look on his face. “Excellent. We’ll discuss how you and Mr. Verlad will be punished later.”
“Let Rone go, please. I . . . forced him to help me. H-He doesn’t have anything you want.” She took a step forward, then another, her head tilting slightly as her eyes peered across the street. Rone tried to see what had caught her attention past the shadows.
They stood next to a metalwork factory—had he been paying attention to his senses instead of the men ready to shoot him full of lead, he might have noticed the smell. No doors—they were probably at the back of the thing. A pipe about two feet across snaked up the outer wall, bending once just above a valve— A steam valve.
On a very large pipe.
Rone’s eyes darted back to the guns carried by the men in black as Sandis took trembling fourth and fifth steps. Four pistols, two rifles. The long barrel on the rifles meant slower draw but better aim. If Rone were to run, those were the guns he’d worry about. The pistols were more likely to miss, especially if he didn’t run in a straight line.
There were only two rifles.
Sandis moved forward again. Kazen twitched—she was testing his patience. Did she want Rone to get to the valve? But the gunmen were too close, pistols or not.