In seconds, the Cleaved Man was aflame.
Squinting against the smoke and the fire, Merik searched behind the bar for any sign of Garren. In the corner of the Cleaved Man, the dark door still called to him. Shadows still sang.
At that thought, the full expanse of Merik’s power awoke. Air funneled in, carrying sparks. He launched out from behind the bar. As fast as muscles and magic could carry him, he dove toward the four soldiers, all that stood between him and the door at the back corner.
One solider tried to run. Merik snapped his winds like a whip. Two men toppled over.
Merik’s odds improved again. He couldn’t resist grinning, sending thick, scorching air down his throat. Light, smoke, flame—these were his elements. His friends. He’d been born from them, a creature of half flesh, half shadows. And to these elements he would return.
Sharp as any edge.
The last two men charged, firing their crossbows. Too fast for Merik to dodge, the bolts hit his stomach, his thigh. But in a flash of power that rippled through him, shadows coalesced in his veins.
Merik had just enough time to think, No pain, before he yanked out both bolts and kept moving. Then he strode through the corner door, made almost impenetrable by fumes and fire.
The Fury was coming.
*
Vivia sat at her desk in Pin’s Keep, recalculating numbers she’d logged a few days before. The formerly bleak, negative totals would soon be gloriously positive. While yes, her stomach panged a bit at the thought of hiding the latest Fox shipment from her father, the warmth building in her chest quickly drowned out the guilt.
After all, hiding supplies in the storeroom had been a massive loss in the end, so Vivia saw no reason to continue hoarding. Pin’s Keep was starving now. End of story.
With a satisfying scriiittttch, she marked through the amount of incoming supplies. Then she wrote in the new total.
Footsteps beat on the stairs, fast and leaping. Then Stix rushed in. “Sir!” She was panting. “I followed the boy—the Fury’s companion. You need to come. Now.”
Vivia sprang to her feet. Papers scattered. “Where is he?”
“Here. Inside Pin’s Keep.” She didn’t wait for Vivia to follow, and her white head shot from sight before Vivia could even scrabble to the door. By the time Vivia hit the bottom of the spiral stairs, Stix and her long legs were already almost out of the hall.
Vivia half walked, half ran after her, catching up as Stix ducked into the kitchen. Steam and heat and the dull clack-clack-clack of knives washed over Vivia. People paused to smile at their princess, to bow or curtsy or salute. Stix wasn’t slowing, though, so Vivia didn’t either.
They passed the billowing stoves, then the racks with the day’s supplies. Then, finally, they reached the cellar door in the darkest corner. Two soldiers stood sentry.
“Has the boy come back out?” Stix called.
“No, sir!” barked one, while the other shouted, “No one’s come through, sir!”
“Good.” Stix bent through the archway. Vivia followed, the stones grazing atop her hair. Shadows blanketed her eyes.
“The boy went down here,” Stix whispered as they crept, quieter now and slower too. “Might be we can corner him. Use him as bait for the Fury … There’s no one here.” Stix hopped off the final step. Then spun. “No one at all.”
She was right. The square lantern-lit cellar was empty, the space too small for anyone to hide. There was nowhere on or behind the shelves sagging against the walls that could possibly fit a person.
“I swear,” Stix hissed, more to herself than Vivia, “that the boy came down here. My men must’ve missed him.” She lurched back for the stairs.
“Wait.” Vivia walked, neck craned, toward a shelf straight ahead. It was tipped askew, and in the crack between it and another shelf, spiders crawled. One by one. A centipede too.
In seconds, Vivia had her fingers wedged behind the wood. She yanked. The case slid easily forward—too easily. As if small wheels were tucked beneath its pine planks.
An archway yawned wide in the stones, water dripping from its ancient keystone. A roach scuttled out.
“Holy hell-waters,” Stix whispered, moving to Vivia’s side. “Where do you think it leads?”
“Darkness is not always a foe,” Vivia murmured. “Find the entrance down below.”
“Entrance to … where?”
Vivia didn’t answer. She couldn’t, for at the moment something burbled in her chest. Something hot that might have been a laugh, might have been sob. For of course, the answer to the under-city would be here. Right under her blighted nose—and right under her mother’s blighted nose too. All these years, they had believed the city was lost, and all these months, Vivia had wasted her time searching.
Tears prickled, but Vivia ground her teeth against them. She could laugh, she could cry, she could feel all of this later. For now, she had to keep moving.
“Grab the lantern,” she said thickly. Then she entered the darkness.