loneliness of the last three years.
“In that case-” She pulled him back and kissed him again.
They entered the city’s cloacae through an old service door built into the Garden’s wall, rain splashing the cobbles around them and running cold fingers through Isyllt’s upswept hair. Rust clogged the lock, but the key Khelsea had given her finally clicked. Hinges shrieked as the metal door swung open and the effluvium of the tunnels wafted around them. Ciaran’s long nose wrinkled.
“Are you certain this is wise?”
She grinned. “No. That’s why you came with me.”
Darkness swallowed them as the door swung shut. Isyllt’s witchlight glistened on damp walls and slime-slick stairs leading under the city. The roar of water echoed through the stairwell as they descended. Sewage ran in open channels, while cleaner water sluiced through great pipes on its way to taps and fountains.
They followed the narrow walkway beside the canal, breathing shallowly against the stench. The rain helped, pouring down from gutters, sweeping the city’s waste toward the river Dis. The ledges on either side were perhaps a man’s height across, and the canal thrice that width, spanned by narrow stone arches every few dozen yards. Water churned black and frothing an armspan from their feet. Its noise was deafening-they would never hear anyone approaching.
Not that the vrykoloi would make a sound if they didn’t want to. But for all that some Erisinians hung charms against vampires and told bloody and improbable stories, there had been no real trouble between the humans and the underdwellers for generations. The ancient Severoi kings-generally thought of as sorcerous and too tolerant of demons-had brokered a truce, granting the vampires freedom in the undercity in exchange for the safety of the citizens. Or at least only discreet murders. Ghosts and demons and ordinary human killers were much more common a threat in the city.
So why rob a royal crypt? Impossible to imagine it would go unnoticed, or that the Crown wouldn’t take action. She hoped the vrykoloi’s opinion of the truce hadn’t changed.
They climbed a rusty ladder down to the next level of sewers. Isyllt had no idea how far the tunnels truly sprawled. Generations of kings and city councils had added to them, and most maps conflicted. Every so often a new sewer line or enlarged crypt would open into a strange tunnel that no one could account for. Hopefully the vrykoloi or other mystery diggers knew what they were about, and sections of the city wouldn’t collapse into the ground one day.
The din of water faded as they climbed lower and the tunnel walls roughened. Moisture dripped from the ceilings, splashing in puddles and echoing along low corridors. The air grew heavy with moss and rust and stone, a cloying taste over Isyllt’s tongue. The weight of earth around them was enough to silence even Ciaran, and she strained her ears for any sound of company. The conjured light bobbed at her shoulder, threw their shadows wild and flickering against the walls.
Kiril had showed her this way years ago, while they crawled through the tunnels in search of other quarry. In the days when they worked together, wading through death to the knees. The vrykoloi must surely have heard them coming by now-
She never heard a sound, even as a white shape stepped out of the darkness in front of them. Breath hissed between her teeth and her boots scraped stone as she stumbled back, right hand reaching over her shoulder. Behind her, Ciaran cursed softly.
Witchlight glittered in wide yellow eyes, glistened on ivory fangs bared in a grin. Animal teeth in a mockery of a human face. Batlike ears hung with gold and silver hoops pricked forward under cobweb hair.
“Spider.” A whisper, but too loud in this place. She dropped her hand. The ring hung quiescent against her sternum and she held her breath against a relieved sigh.
“Hello, little witch.” He straightened, his head nearly brushing the ceiling-a creature of sharp angles and spindle-thin limbs, attenuated to the point of grotesquerie. “I thought I heard your heartbeat.” He bowed with marionette grace. “What brings you to my doorstep?” His eyes flickered briefly over Ciaran and returned to her.
The scars on her left shoulder tingled. Spider still carried silver burns from their first meeting as well. “I need to speak with your elders.”
He cocked one white brow. “Really? Do you come on your own business, necromancer, or your Crown’s?”
Her smile felt tight. “Somewhere in between. It’s important.”
He moved between eye-blinks, between heartbeats. She never saw him stir, and then he had closed two yards to stand beside her, stooping till his face was near hers. Not yellow like an animal’s, his eyes, but brilliant and crystalline as brimstone. His nostrils flared. “Your heart is beating very fast.”
Isyllt tilted her head and smiled, breathing in his unnerving aroma of decaying leaves and anise, old blood and older earth. “You do have that effect on me.”
Fangs flashed with his laugh. “Would you like to see my scars?”
“Maybe some other night. I want to see the elders before dawn.”
Spider sighed-an affectation, since she was certain he didn’t need breath-and stepped back. “Oh, very well. Your companion-”
“Comes with me,” Isyllt said. She was willing to risk both their lives on Ciaran’s discretion. He’d use anything as fodder for a song, but could usually be convinced to change the important bits.
Spider nodded. “Then follow me, witch. I’ll take you down.”
In another flickering movement he vanished down the tunnel. Ciaran’s hand closed on Isyllt’s elbow, and she wasn’t sure whom he meant to reassure.
Spider led them deeper into the earth, through narrow twisting crawlspaces that she and Ciaran cursed and struggled their way through. The walls glistened with moisture, sparked with flecks of crystal. She was thoroughly lost before long; only the vrykoloi’s goodwill would see them safely out again. The silver knife weighed heavy on her back.
Finally the cramped corridor opened, only to end abruptly in a black pit. Isyllt sent her witchlight dancing over the precipice, but its glow couldn’t reach the bottom.
“Watch your step,” Spider said, laying a cold hand on her arm.
“Do we fly down from here?”
His eyes glittered. “Almost.”
And before she could reply, he scooped her into his arms and leapt over the edge.
Isyllt didn’t scream, mostly because she didn’t have enough breath. A dizzying rush of air, then the jolt of landing. Spider’s long legs absorbed most of the impact, but the force still rippled through her hard enough to crack her teeth together. Her control slipped and the light went out.
She couldn’t breathe. Spider’s arms, impossibly strong for their gauntness, cradled her against his chest. Her heart tripped against her ribs and her stomach thought it was still falling. Colors swam in front of her as her eyes strained against the black and the taste of blood filled her mouth; she’d bitten her lip.
Spider’s breath wafted cold against her cheek. “I remember what you taste like.” His tongue, long and rough as a cat’s, brushed her mouth and she shuddered.
Then he was gone. Wavering on her feet, she called the light again in time to see him scurrying up the rock, nimble as his namesake. He returned a moment later carrying Ciaran.
“Don’t worry,” he said as he deposited the minstrel. “That’s nearly the hardest part.”
The light flickered treacherously across the floor, but couldn’t touch the walls or ceiling. No matter how softly Isyllt stepped, the scuff of boot-soles on stone carried through the wide empty space. Sweat chilled beneath her jacket.
Ciaran took her arm again as they followed the vampire, making a show of helping her over the uneven ground. “Why did I come with you, again?”
“Because you love me. And because I’m going to pay you.”
“As long as I had a good reason.” His fingers tightened on her sleeve, warm through the leather.
The sloping cavern floor ended at wide stone doors. Skulls embedded in white rock grinned madly in the capering light. Human and otherwise, some so foreign Isyllt had no idea what their original owners might have looked like. The gates of the vampires’ ossuary palace, through which very few mortals had ever returned
