“Oh hye, sir.” A relieved smile. “That must be when the floods rush through. The tunnels bring water down from the river, see? Most of it goes into the city for plumbing and all that, but some goes down to Shite Street. It rushes through, picks up the sewage, and then flushes it back out again.
“It’s cleaned in a big reservoir below the Southern Wharf, and then dumped back into the river south of the city. The floods run often on Shite Street, as you might guess, which is another reason people avoid it. But maybe,” she said, drawling out the word, “there’s a meeting going on. It happens all the time in other tunnels. The gangs are always gatherin’ or fightin’ or tradin’ in any passages that the Royal Forces never enter.”
“So my sister must be meeting someone at half past twelve.” Merik smiled, if tiredly. “Well done, boy.”
A visible gulp slid down Cam’s long throat. She hastily ripped off another chunk of bread. “Breakfast?”
“Hmmm.” Merik accepted a piece, before saying, “Now it’s your turn, Cam. Tell me what happened.
“S’just one of the Skulks gangs.” She chomped on the bread. Crumbs stuck to her lips, and through a full mouth she added, “I didn’t know they’d expanded their territory, and I walked where I shouldn’t’ve been walking. So, I went back to Pin’s Keep, and they patched me up. Gave me that salve to use.”
Merik tried to nod calmly—tried to hide the sudden fire now chasing through his veins. “What gang was it, Cam?”
“One you wouldn’t know.” More bread, more chewing, more stubborn resistance.
So Merik stopped pressing. For now. “They know you well at Pin’s Keep?”
“Sure.” She bounced a shoulder. “I used to visit before I enlisted, sir. When the streets or the Cisterns got too dangerous to sleep in … Well, Pin’s Keep is where I always ended up.”
At those words, the Cisterns got too dangerous to sleep in, the heat in Merik’s blood pumped hotter. “You … slept in the Cisterns?”
Cam shrugged helplessly. “Hye, sir. It’s shelter, ain’t it? And you can live down there once you know the flood cycles.”
“How many people live there?”
Hesitantly, as if realizing Merik wasn’t going to bring up the gang again, Cam relaxed. Her posture regained its usual slouch while she tore into more bread. “Thousands, maybe?”
“Everyone knows this, don’t they? I’m the one fool who doesn’t.” Merik folded his arms over his chest, leaning back. The wood creaked a protest. “Noden’s breath,” he said to the ceiling. “I know nothing about this city.”
“You didn’t grow up here, sir. I did.”
So did Vivia. She’d grown up with the sailors and the soldiers. With the High Council and King Serafin. It gave her an advantage. One of many.
As a boy, Merik had thought he was the lucky one—living wild on the Nihar estate with Kullen at his side. Hunting and fishing and traipsing through forests half dead. While that had earned him loyalty and love in the south, here in Lovats, Merik was no one.
He could change that, though. He would make his amends. Be what the people needed him to be.
With a renewed sense of strength, Merik leaned over the map. “Can you get me to Shite Street, boy?”
“For this meeting, sir? Absolutely. But only so long as I can stay with you—because you know,” she lifted her voice before Merik could argue, “that if I’d been allowed to join you at Pin’s Keep, I could’ve whistled a warning before that first mate ever got upstairs.”
“Then you would have been the one facing her Waterwitchery.”
“A Waterwitch?” Cam’s eyes bulged. “A full Waterwitch—not just a Tidewitch…” She trailed off as a yawn took hold. With her jaw stretched long and eyes squinting shut, she looked just like a sleepy puppy.
Merik’s anger returned in an instant. He motioned stiffly to the bed. “Sleep, Cam.” The command came out gruffer than he intended. “We’ll brave Shite Street once the sun’s a bit higher.”
Cam’s lips parted. She clearly wanted to obey—to sleep—but her blighted loyalty wouldn’t let her abandon him so easily. “What about you, sir?” she asked, right on cue.
“I’ll sleep too. Eventually.”
Now came a cautious smile, and Merik tried not to smile back. Cam had that effect, though. A world of darkness, but she could still make a room glow.
In moments, the girl had curled onto the bed and was fast asleep. Merik waited until her chest swelled and sank with slumber before rising, quietly as he could, and tiptoeing for the door. He had two tasks to accomplish before he was allowed to sleep.
First, Merik had a pair of boots to find, though he had no idea where he might do so at this hour.
And second—the task that really mattered, the one that sent Merik hopping two steps at a time down the tenement stairs—he had a gang to find. One that lurked near Pin’s Keep. One that thought preying on the weak was an acceptable way to live.
Why do you hold a razor in one hand?
“So men remember,” Merik murmured as he stepped into the wet morning, “that I am as sharp as any edge.”
And why do you hold broken glass in the other?
“So men remember that I am always watching.” With that final utterance, Merik yanked his hood low and set off for the Skulks.