Though they were only half a mile from the city, it took over an hour to reach the wall. This was mostly because Josef led them in a crazy zigzag through the brush. They crossed back over their path more than once, and he insisted on keeping to the tall undergrowth and away from the game trails, so that with every other step Miranda had to beat back a branch or untangle her skirt from a nettle bush. To make things worse, Eli stopped every five minutes or so to murmur quietly to this tree or that rock. She made it a point to listen covertly, but so far as she could tell, his little talks were of the most mundane kind, an exchange of pleasantries, maybe a comment about the weather, like a country wife chatting with her neighbors. As he talked, he would do them little favors, flicking an ant away or scraping some moss off the peak of a rock so it could feel the sunlight. That was strange enough, but the truly amazing thing was the way the sleepy spirits perked up as soon as he spoke to them. Miranda could almost feel them leaning forward, eager to tell him anything he wanted to know. Whatever brightness Gin had been talking about, it seemed to have a universal effect.
Miranda expected Josef to complain about the seemingly meaningless stops, but he accepted Eli’s little chats with bored inertness, as if he had long since argued every point of the process five times over and couldn’t be bothered to care anymore.
At last, they had reached the edge of the forest, where the king’s deer park met the city’s northern border. The trees ended a good twenty feet from the wall, leaving a broad swath of open ground carpeted with overgrown grass and saplings. Josef made them crouch in the scrubby bushes at the edge of the clearing as he scouted ahead. While they were waiting for the swordsman to come back, Miranda took the opportunity to satisfy her curiosity and she crept over to where Eli was crouched in the grass.
“Okay,” she whispered, “I give up. Is the weather talk some kind of code?”
“What?” Eli’s eyebrows shot up. “No, no, I’m just building good will.”
Miranda gave him a confused look. “Good will?”
“It’s a harsh world,” Eli said. “You never know when you’ll need a little good will from the local countryside.”
Miranda was skeptical. A mossy rock didn’t seem like much of an ally. “So you weren’t doing reconnaissance or anything?”
“Sorry, no,” Eli said, shaking his head.
Miranda frowned. “But-”
“Quiet.”
Miranda and Eli both jumped at the sudden command. Josef was kneeling in the tall grass not a foot away from them, glaring icily. Miranda hadn’t even heard his approach.
“We move now,” he said.
“Wha-” Before Miranda could even form her question, Josef took off for the city wall at a dead run, Nico and Eli right on his heels. Miranda took a deep breath and charged after them, covering the space of open ground between the trees and the city wall faster than she had ever moved in her life. She slammed into the wall and dropped to a crouch just in time. No sooner had she reached the stones than a small troop of guards appeared out of the woods only a few feet from where they’d been hiding just moments before.
Miranda clapped her hands over her mouth as the soldiers fanned out. They patrolled the edge of the forest in a wide sweep, poking their short spears into the underbrush. Finding nothing, the leader waved his hand, and the unit faded back into the woods. Only when the sound of their boots had died to a whisper did Miranda release the breath she’d been holding.
“That was lucky,” she said.
“Luck’s got nothing to do with it,” Josef said in a low voice, peering at her through the grass. “Those patrols have been sweeping the area all day. If it wasn’t for the fact that the forest doesn’t want them to find us, all the luck in the world wouldn’t have gotten us this far.”
Miranda started, and Eli winked at her from his hiding place farther down the wall.
Josef gave Miranda a look of grudging approval. “Nice sprint, by the way.”
“Thanks,” she muttered. “What now?”
“Now we have to find that panel,” Josef said, turning to the wall. “It should be close.”
“It’s here.” Nico’s quiet voice made Miranda jump. Nico was crouched on Josef’s right, one small white finger sticking out of her voluminous sleeve to point at the iron square, barely larger than a laundry chute, set into the wall beside her.
“What is it?” Miranda asked, leaning in for a better look.
“A bolt hole,” Eli said, crawling over to crouch beside Nico, “in case the royalty need to make a fast exit. Very common in cities like this.” He gave the iron door an experimental push, but it didn’t so much as rattle. He tried again, harder this time, but he might as well have been pushing the wall itself. “Hmm.” He frowned. “This one seems to be locked.”
Miranda gave him a puzzled look. “Isn’t this how you got in last time?”
“Of course not,” Eli said, looking insulted. “First rule of thievery, never use the same entrance twice.”
Miranda rolled her eyes. “How many ‘first rules’ of thievery do you have?”
“When one mistake can mean your head on a pike, every rule’s a first rule,” Eli said cheerfully.
The thief ran his long fingers along the door’s edge, which was set flush against the stone. Miranda watched with growing uncertainty. There wasn’t even a keyhole, so far as she could see. When he had tapped every inch of the metal, Eli leaned back, brow knit in thought.
“Can’t you just talk it open?” Miranda asked, moving a little closer. “Like you did with the prison door?”
“I could,” Eli said, “but-” He reached into his coat pocket and drew out a small leather case, monogrammed in gold with an ornate capital
He flipped the case open, revealing a startling selection of lock picks. Carefully selecting the longest and thinnest, he leaned down until his nose brushed the door. He held out his hand, and, without further prompting, Josef handed him a knife. Eli expertly wedged the slender blade into the hair-thin crack between the iron and the stone. Then, using the blade as a lever, he carefully lifted the door out of its niche. It opened just a fraction before sticking again with a soft clang.
“Lever and padlock,” Eli muttered, switching out the thin lock pick for a slightly longer one with a crooked head. “Josef, if you would.”
Josef took the knife from him and held it where Eli pointed, putting just enough pressure on the lever to keep the opening as large as possible without snapping the blade. Eli took a pair of delicate, extremely-long-nosed pliers out of his case and, using both hands, neatly slipped the pliers and the lock pick through the knife-thin crack.
He gripped with the pliers and began to deftly maneuver the lock pick, wiggling it right, then left, then right again, like he was trying to hook something. At last there was a loud click. Eli released the pliers and a muted crash came through the iron as the padlock hit the ground on the other side. He tucked his tools back into their leather case and opened the door with a flourish. The whole operation had taken less than a minute.
When he caught Miranda gawking, Eli’s grin became unbearably smug.
“What were you expecting?” he said, still grinning. “I’m the greatest thief in the-
“Enough bragging,” the swordsman grunted. “Inside, quick. The patrols move in a circle, you know.”
Still rubbing his injured arm, Eli slid feet first into the dark bolt hole. Nico went next, casually wedging herself, bulky coat and all, through the narrow opening.
“You next,” Josef said, looking at Miranda.
She swallowed. Suddenly, the bolt hole looked impossibly narrow and abysmally deep. However, she had an image to maintain as a Spiritualist, and that image did not include being afraid of holes, no matter how narrow or deep they might be. She sat down stiffly and began easing herself in, feet first. Just when she’d managed to convince herself it wasn’t going to be that bad, she heard the crunch of men moving through the forest. She looked frantically over her shoulder in time to see the first patrolman reach the edge of the forest. She was about to whisper a warning when Josef shoved her, hard. Miranda yelped and lost her balance, sliding the rest of the way down the bolt hole. She landed in a pile on a cold, hard-packed dirt floor. A second later, Josef landed on top of her. The iron door clanged shut above them, and the room plunged into darkness.
