doubt that’s enough to summon with.” Vampires, like prostitutes, were unlikely to use their birth names. And the true names of demons were nearly impossible to determine, anyway. Binding a foreign spirit to flesh, living or dead, changed both irrevocably.
“The one who bit you?”
“No, that would be too easy.” The bond of the wound coupled with even an untrue name might have been enough to use, but not only one or the other. “I’d almost rather search for Forsythia’s ghost first, or for someone who knows her story.”
“But-”
“Yes, but.” She grimaced at the dregs of her tea. “We don’t have time for that.” Stolen royal goods would always take precedence over a murdered prostitute. Part of her wanted to argue, but the calendar was against her- it was already Hekate, and the rain and chill that wrapped Erisin would be snow in the north. The king and his forces were already decamping or would be very soon.
Which wasn’t need for so much haste that she shouldn’t talk to Kiril first. Khelsea might be better prepared than she and Ciaran had been the first time, but there were still a dozen dangers in the sewers. A dozen reasons to seek his advice. And the only reason not to was the set of his shoulders as he’d turned from her, the warmth of his hand on her skin and the chill of its absence. The foolish pain of rejection and loneliness that could still prick her to tears years later. Whenever she thought she’d finally moved past it, a touch or glance would undo her all over again. How many more years would pass before she was free of it?
“All right,” she said, taking a last swallow of cold tea to rinse away the bitter taste in her mouth. The light cooled and greyed again, and they had little enough of it to waste. “Let’s go.”
They didn’t enter through the Garden’s access this time, but by one in Harrowgate that Isyllt judged to be closer to the place where she and Ciaran had been attacked. It might have been easier to track the thieves from the palace crypts, but also easier to draw attention and unwanted questions. At least the trail here was fresher.
The door shut with a metallic clang behind them and echoes scattered and sank beneath the rush of water. The sewer didn’t care about day or night-its blackness was absolute. A carriage rattled overhead, and the clatter of hooves and wheels echoed painfully.
They kept careful counts of turns and branches, but the tunnels in Oldtown all looked the same and getting lost was far too easy. If Isyllt had brought any food, she might have trailed crumbs behind her like the children in cradle-stories. Not that the sewer rats needed more to eat, by the size of those who so brazenly crossed their path. A pity she couldn’t talk to them and save herself some detective work.
She found the site of the attack after two wrong turns, or at least a stretch of sewer that looked promising. Isyllt drew a knife-not the kukri at her back, but a razor-honed folding blade that fit neatly in her pocket-and pricked her left wrist. A drop of blood glistened black in the pale light, and washed metal-and-seaweed over her tongue as she licked it away. Her instructors at the Arcanost would chide her for needing to draw her own blood-she was filled with it, after all-but she’d always found the spell easier with the taste of it sticky in her mouth.
With a whispered word, light blossomed on her wounded wrist and on the damp stone ledge, a pale blue no brighter than cave lichen. From the shape of the stains she could see where the vampire had first bitten her, where blood had dripped from her shoulder and later splattered as she shook him off. The trail ended with the ledge.
Now that she knew where to look, Isyllt could also see the shadow-faint outline of the secret door in the wall. She kept her eyes away; Khelsea didn’t lead a cohort by being inobservant.
“This is it.” The pounding water drowned her words, and she shouted the next. “The water carried one away, and I imagine the other followed.”
Khelsea gestured ahead with a flourish. “After you, Crown Investigator.” Isyllt read the shape of the words instead of hearing them.
Isyllt sniffed, hoping to catch the scent of vrykoloi, but all she got was a noseful of wet shit and offal. She shook her head with a grimace and started walking.
They followed the current for several turns, but finally came to a fork where the water rushed left and right. Isyllt sent her witchlight back and forth over the ground and along both arches; peperine bricks glittered with dark flecks of magnetite and brighter mica, beautiful amidst the filth, but she saw no sign of anything having chosen one tunnel over the other. Finally she leaned back against the wall and sighed in disgust.
“Do you have a coin we can flip?” she yelled to Khelsea. Echoes bounced off slime-slick stones.
“I thought,” a familiar voice said from the darkness, soft but carrying, “that you were going to wait for me.”
Khelsea spun, pistol shining in her hand, and Isyllt flung out a hand before she could pull the trigger. Her heart spiked sharp in her chest. “Don’t! He’s-”
“Not to you or yours, necromancer.” He stepped into the light and Khelsea’s breath hissed through clenched teeth. In the darkness and witchfire it was hard to believe he could ever walk the streets unnoticed, glamourie or no. Gaunt and grotesque, inhuman. Demonic.
Isyllt realized that she’d never talked to Khelsea about consorting with demons, and if the inspector might ever condone it. Maybe that was a conversation to have with plenty of wine, too.
“It seemed a pity to waste the daylight,” Isyllt said, stepping neatly between Khelsea and Spider. From the corner of her eye she saw the inspector lower her pistol, but not holster it. “I thought you’d be sleeping.” She blushed, and gave thanks for the darkness.
He chuckled. “You’ve been reading the wrong sort of stories. Oh, yes,” he said when she raised an eyebrow. “I follow the penny dreadfuls.”
“You should write some of your own, if the others are so inaccurate.”
His grin bared his fangs, and the gaps around them that let him close his jaw. Like an animal’s. “I don’t think your citizens would like to read the truth of us.”
Isyllt snorted. “We can discuss literature later. If you want to help us, then by all means lead on.”
“So impatient,” Spider said. “You haven’t introduced me to your companion.”
Khelsea stepped forward, holstering her pistol and extending her gloved hand in one smooth motion. “Khelsea Shar.” No rank or title, and Isyllt silently blessed her discretion. And from her willingness to share her name with a demon, guessed that it wasn’t her birth name.
“Spider.” He bowed over her hand with an exaggerated marionette grace. “Delighted to meet you.”
He hadn’t been so delighted to meet Ciaran. Maybe Khelsea was more to his taste. Isyllt thanked the saints that he wasn’t to hers.
“Do you know which way they went?”
He studied the branching tunnel, nostrils flaring. Finally he cocked his head toward the far one. “That way, I think.”
Of course it would be the side that made them cross the canal. She glared at the churning black water. Spider caught her expression and laughed. He moved faster than she could follow, a pale blur and a ghostly afterimage behind her eyelids. When she blinked again he stood on the far bank, sweeping out a mocking hand to invite them across.
“Show-off,” Isyllt muttered as she backtracked to the last narrow bridge.
“You do have the most interesting friends,” said Khelsea.
Another winding, branching walk followed. Isyllt had long since lost track of time, but getting out of the sewers before early autumn darkness fell seemed unlikely. Not that it mattered, if the vrykoloi truly didn’t sleep. Although he’d earlier said they did.
She wondered if Spider could read her thoughts, or only knew the curious minds of mages. After a while he slowed till she walked at his shoulder; Khelsea kept watch at the rear.
“The older we grow, the more we sleep,” he said softly. She shouldn’t have been able to hear him over the din, but she could. “The elders nap for months at a time, or longer. But only injury drives the young ones to rest, while they’re safe from the sun. Daylight is… tiring. Painful. Like the worst of summer and winter is to the living.”
He was only trying to bribe her with information, but her curiosity was piqued all the same. “And how old are you?”
