“I have everything I need.”
“You need more than me,” I whisper, plaintive.
He stares at me, expression dimming into that familiar resignation. Jaw clenched, Thaelan releases me and steps back, rubbing his mouth with one hand.
“Tomorrow,” I try, forcing my voice bright. “We’ll go tomorrow. You’ll have time to pack, to plan—”
“I’ll go with you,” Cadence says. She steps forward. “I’ll go right now.”
Thaelan exhales softly and reaches for her, hugging her as tight as he can. “I know,” he says.
Candlelight twinkles in the distance and my stomach tightens with sudden longing. The women I work with often joke about what life is like in the streets above us, but we never talk about ourselves. There’s no point. Life in the Brim holds no mystery. We’ll either die slowly like my father, or all at once, like the boy from the raid the night before.
I can’t see the stars from here but it doesn’t matter: I don’t want to make wishes to the gods or their sainted virtues anymore. I want to be strong enough to survive all on my own, and staying in the Brim will kill me. It will kill Cadence.
Decided, I step around Thaelan, lowering myself into the sewer grate, landing with a soft splash in an inch of brackish water. Craning my head, I meet Thaelan’s startled gaze.
“Are you coming?” I ask.
His grin is contagious; I can’t help but smile back as he lowers Cadence into my arms and splashes down beside us, stretching to drag the grate back into place. Cadence clings to his side and he dutifully carries her as we hurry uphill, toward the castle and its dungeons. As we reach the mouth of the tunnel, a clock chimes in the streets overhead.
Thaelan stops and I slam into his back.
He swears, mumbling an apology for his language as he turns to face me. “Head count,” he says, and my stomach falls. In the adrenaline of committing treason, I had forgotten our first enemy: the barracks curfew. Long before Thaelan mapped the tunnels beneath the castle, he mapped all the alleys back to the barracks, timing each route in order to maximize every last second of our stolen time together.
We forgot to watch the clock.
Swallowing hard, Thaelan surveys the tunnel left and right, debating. “We’ll just keep going,” he says at last, lowering Cadence to her feet. She resists, clutching his arm. “They’ll search the taverns and brothels before they think to look down here. We have a head start.”
“But they will come looking for you. No. Make head count,” I say, almost relieved. “Grab whatever you can and come back. Weapons. Money. Food. You’ve snuck out a million times before.”
Thaelan nods as he pulls me closer, his arm hooked around my neck. “Keep going,” he whispers in my ear. “I won’t be far behind. I’ll find you, Faris.” Then, even quieter, “I love you.”
I hug him back, tight as I can, before he pulls away. Handing me the crumpled page of coded directions, he pries Cadence loose and backs away, flashing us another smile, the kind that makes his dimple emerge, before he turns away.
Cadence takes a step after him. “Wait! I want to go with you!”
I hold her back, struggling to read the lines on the vellum in the murky light. “You have to stay with me.”
“A captain never abandons her general,” Cadence growls, breaking loose, splashing out of reach. War blazes across her face as she glares at me: He loves me but didn’t even say good-bye to her.
“Cadence,” I warn.
She starts running.
Swearing, I follow, Thaelan’s directions balled in one hand. “Slow down! You’ll get lost!” We both will.
She doesn’t listen, calling after Thaelan, her voice too loud, too obvious; someone will hear us. Fear rolls down my back, icy as the water at my feet. “Cadence, please.”
She disappears ahead of me. My frantic footsteps drown out the sound of hers and I stop, straining for some indication of which way she went. More drainage grates curve ahead, but the branching tunnels around me are all dark, leading across the city and beneath the castle. I glance to the paper in my fist, useless now, without my sister.
Mother of a sainted virgin.
Biting the inside of my cheek, I force myself to take a deep breath, to calm down, to listen. Water splashes ahead of me, but it’s steady, pouring in from somewhere else. To my right, an irregular tempo. Footsteps.
Relieved, I turn the corner, bracing my hand to the wall as I peer into a shroud of darkness. “Cadence?”
A match strikes and I flinch away, holding a hand against the light. A face sharpens into view. A young man, with bright blue eyes and dark hair that falls forward, skimming the sharp angle of his cheek.
Alistair Pembrough. The king’s executioner.
Fear freezes me in place. Since inheriting the position last winter, Alistair has rarely made an appearance beyond the castle walls, but his reputation permeates every inch of the city. This is the boy who grew up in these tunnels, furtive as a shadow, the boy born to kill. When his eyes lock with mine above the flickering light, something flashes across his face. Recognition.
How can he possibly know who I am?
His match burns out as Cadence finally answers my call. Her voice is muffled but shrill, not far ahead. A lower baritone joins her, low and pleading. Thaelan. He came back for her, which means he’s not going to make head count.
We have to run.
Cadence isn’t the only one to benefit from Thaelan’s training, but temporarily robbed of my night vision, my attack on Alistair is blind, instinctive.
Accurate. I hit something soft and Alistair grunts in surprise. Emboldened, I strike again, higher than before, connecting to something better. Bone.
His hands skate past my arm and tighten around the strap of my bag. “Wait—”
Abandoning the bag, I run headlong into darkness, ignoring Alistair’s shouts behind me. The ground slopes up and light appears ahead, soft and diffusive. The dungeon. Thaelan, Cadence, Avinea—
Guards.
I skid to a stop before they notice me. Pressing myself flat to the wall, I backtrack until I reach a tunnel that splits to the left at the level of my knees, pulling myself up and out of sight. Moments later, Alistair sloshes past me, a hand pressed to his nose, my bag around his shoulder.
“There’re too many tunnels,” one of the guards calls by way of greeting.
“Send the rats,” another suggests.
“Whatever you have to do,” Alistair snaps in return.
Shadow rats. The alley-dwelling cousins of the king’s shadow crows. If they find us, the guards will descend. If they bite us, we’ll be marked by magic and the king’s provost will sniff us out no matter where we hide.
Either way, I can’t stay here.