“You should discuss that with Lady Tenebris the next time we visit. But I’m afraid we need to leave now.” She glanced at the gathered crowd, but recognized none of the faces. “Where’s Spider?”
“Here,” the vampire said, appearing at her elbow. “I’ll escort you up.”
The vampires stared at Ciaran as he stood and straightened his coat, their eyes hungry. He bowed with a flourish as graceful as any he might offer a crowd at the Briar Patch, or an orpheum. A slender arm reached out of the shadows, almost shyly, and pressed something into his hand. Isyllt caught his sleeve and pulled him away before anyone demanded an encore.
When the tall stone doors shut behind, Isyllt finally let out a sigh. The back of her neck still prickled furiously and her muscles were strung tight as kithara strings.
Spider smiled crookedly. “How was your meeting?”
She kept walking. “Trying,” she said at last, voice low. “She doesn’t care about any of this. It’s not just our skins-” a vague upward gesture encompassed the city above them “-I’m trying to save, you know.”
“I know.” Spider took her arm with casual grace. “That’s what happens to the very old ones. They grow torpid, dull. All they want to do is sleep, the rest of the world be damned.”
“She said you might help me.”
He nodded, pale hair drifting like cobwebs around his face. “I will, little witch, I will.” The doors vanished into shadow behind them and soon the light lapped at the cliff wall they’d descended. “I’ll listen in the dark and see what I find.”
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “And how is it that you know what to listen for?”
He grinned. “I’m very good at listening in the dark.”
“Who was the other mage Tenebris mentioned, who you were so fond of?”
“Another sorceress, years ago. Decades, it must be. She wanted to learn our secrets, and even managed to charm one or two out of us. She’s dead now, I fear.”
He turned at the wall instead of hauling them back up the way they’d come as Isyllt expected. “There’s an easier way back.” He led them to a narrow door in the rock, where a stair twisted up into shadow.
Isyllt raised her eyebrows. “You couldn’t have brought us down this way?”
“It’s not as much fun.” He bent close, till she could smell his coppery poison-sweet breath. “I’ll find you when I have something to report.” He bowed over her hand and pressed a cold kiss against her knuckles. “The stair will take you back to the bottom of your sewers. Don’t use it again without permission.”
Before she could speak he was gone, leaving only a lingering chill in her flesh.
The stair was narrow and low, with only room for one at a time to pass. The steep uneven stairs were worn shallow in the centers, and Isyllt wondered how long the vrykoloi had passed this way in the silent dark.
Ciaran went first, the light bobbing ahead of him. Darkness crawled up the stairs in their wake, whispering against Isyllt’s back. Her skin still tingled with the aftermath of nerves. A liability, Kiril called her craving for danger, but he understood it. They waded in death, drank it and swallowed it whole; sometimes it was good to be reminded that they still lived, and wanted to go on living.
“What did the vrykola give you?” she asked Ciaran as they climbed.
He paused to fish in his trouser pocket and pulled out a coin. Gold, crusted along the edge with a dark grime Isyllt didn’t care to identify. The profile stamped on the face wasn’t one she recognized. Ciaran peered at it for a moment, then laughed.
“It’s a chrysaor.” The winged boar that had been the crest of House Korinthes. “She tipped me with two- hundred-year-old gold.”
As her pulse slowed she felt the long walk down. Her legs burned and her breath ached in her lungs. By the time they reached the top of the stairs even so small a magic as the witchlight drained her strength, and fatigue laid a heavy yoke across her shoulders.
The reek of the sewers struck them as the stones swung open, thick and fetid after the smell of rock and earth. The door closed silently behind them, blending seamlessly into the rough wall of the tunnel.
Ciaran sighed, the sound nearly lost in the rush of water. “I need a drink. Come back to the Briar with me-the Crown’s treat.”
Isyllt chuckled. Dust and mud itched on her face and scalp and she craved a hot bath, but wine and pleasant company might suffice. “I think the Crown can afford a bottle or two-”
She broke off as the sapphire began to pulse against her chest and the sharpness of surgical spirits cut through the sewer reek. That and the intake of Ciaran’s breath were all the warning she had.
Weight hit her from behind, driving her to the floor and scoring her palms on stone as she caught herself. Cold hands held her, pinning her arms and clamping her jaw. Much too strong. Ciaran shouted.
Steely fingers yanked her head to the side, ripped at her collar. She twisted, but couldn’t break free, tensed against the strike-
Needles through her skin, sinking into flesh where neck met shoulder. Razor teeth, jaws like a vise. She screamed once, short and sharp. Only a moment till the poison started to work.
Her knife gouged her spine as the vampire’s weight pressed her down; she couldn’t reach the dagger in her boot. But blades had never been her weapon of choice. The witchlight exploded, from candle wisp to blazing star, a burst of light and searing cold.
Someone shrieked. Teeth ripped out of her shoulder, blood gushing. Isyllt pushed to her feet, dragging the kukri free of her ruined jacket. The silver blade shattered the light, threw back shards of brilliance. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she didn’t see the vampire’s rush in time to dodge it.
He caught her low in the stomach, driving the air from her lungs and lifting her off the floor. She stabbed wild and clumsy as they both became airborne.
The water hit her like a wall. Frothing current buffeted them, grabbed her leather clothes and pulled her down. The vampire sank with her, their limbs tangled together. Grit and debris rushed past them, stinging Isyllt’s eyes. Rank, sour water flooded her mouth and she tried not to gag. She shoved left-handed against the vampire’s face, slicing her glove open on a fang. His hand caught her right wrist and forced the blade away. Her back bumped the bottom of the canal, scraping along slime-slick stone as the water bore them on. Her shoulder burned; her lungs burned.
Burned. Burning. A gentle warmth coursing through her veins, soothing aching flesh and taking the pain away…
The venom of a vampire’s bite, working its way into her blood. The poison that calmed their prey, rendered them quiet and pliable while the vrykoloi drank their life away. She’d felt it before with Spider, as sweet and strong as poppy wine once it took hold.
The vampire’s grip numbed her arm-her strength was nothing against his. But she wasn’t alone.
Her diamond flared. Leather cracked and peeled and flaked away, and the spectral glow lit up the water as trapped ghosts answered her call. Their terrible chill seared her bones.
The vampire recoiled from the light, face hidden behind writhing dark hair. His hold loosened and Isyllt swung her knife. Clumsy, hampered by wet leather and wounded shoulder, but the blade sliced along his stomach. Black blood clouded the water, shredding and dissolving in the flow. She thought her lungs would burst as she kicked upward.
She gasped as she broke the surface, lungs screaming. Her right arm was numb to the elbow; she could barely feel the knife hilt against her hand. Her clothing dragged her down, threatened to pull her under again.
A hand closed on hers and lifted her out of the sewer. She gasped in pain as she fell onto stone, scraping her knuckles as she tried to keep hold of her weapon. The witchlight was gone, drowned in the morass of her pain and panic.
“Saints, you reek.” Spider’s voice. She struggled to her knees, raising the knife. “Put that down, witch.”
“Who-” She gulped another breath. Her stomach roiled. “Who was that?”
“I believe that was the rabble Tenebris mentioned.”
Starbursts of color swam in front of her eyes. She felt warm, though she couldn’t stop shivering. Heat trickled down her shoulder. Calling another light was an effort, and the flame sputtered and wept incandescent sparks. “Where’s Ciaran?”
Spider shielded his eyes with one long hand and pointed down the tunnel. “Back there. He’s in better shape than you.”
With trembling fingers she unbuckled her torn jacket and peeled it off. Her blood was nearly black in the eerie
