The Bone Palace

His eyes glittered with a sideways glance. “Older than you, little witch. Young enough to remember summer and winter, wind and rain.”

“When you do sleep, do you dream?” She meant it to be clinical, but wistfulness crept into the words.

“Yes.” He said nothing else, and soon drifted ahead again.

Of course they must, Isyllt thought. Nothing freed you from the past. Not even death.

He stopped not long after, letting Isyllt and Khelsea catch up. As they approached, the witchlight revealed rusty iron bars bound with a heavy chain.

Khelsea pulled the cloacae’s skeleton key from her pocket, but it didn’t turn in the lock. “Well,” she said mildly. “This is problematic. I didn’t think to bring a saw.”

Isyllt leaned her head against the cold bars. Nothing even remotely human-sized would fit through them, unless vampires could turn to shadows like the penny bloods suggested. She remembered Tenebris, and wondered how far from the truth those stories really were.

“We could try to swim under….” She didn’t try to keep the disgust from her voice.

Khelsea examined the lock. “It doesn’t look like this has been opened recently. So if your vampires did come this way, how did they get through? Unless they swam.” She didn’t sound any more thrilled with the prospect.

“There are,” Spider said after a pause, “other tunnels down here. Crawlspaces and byways that I doubt are on your maps. I imagine whoever comes this way leaves the lock intact to avoid attention.”

“You imagine?” Isyllt’s eyes narrowed. “Have you known all along where we were going?”

“I suspected it.” He shrugged one shoulder, a disturbing articulation of bones. “You wouldn’t have trusted me if I’d had too much information too soon.”

“I don’t trust you now. But if you make me swim through the sewers again when there’s an easier way, I’ll give a few new scars for your collection.”

He laughed, like dry leaves scraping stone. “There’s always an easier way.” He twined two fingers through the shackle of the lock, another two through the nearest link of chain, and twisted. Link and lock groaned, and the shackle snapped free of the body with a screech. The sound echoed down the tunnel.

“Easier, but not quieter.” Isyllt fought the urge to cover her aching ears. If the vrykoloi were in their den, they’d soon know someone was coming.

“We hear you mortals crawling through the tunnels no matter how softly you walk,” Spider said. “Like mice in the attic, but clumsier.”

He stilled abruptly, raising a hand to cut off Isyllt’s reply; his ears twitched. She listened, but heard nothing but water and a distant carriage.

“Speaking of mice…” Spider’s wide mouth twisted in a frown. “I hear you, too, Azarne. Come out.”

For several heartbeats there was no reply. Then the tiny vrykola melted out of the shadows. She didn’t move with Spider’s drifting ghostly grace, but with the lazy purpose of a predator. Isyllt didn’t doubt her deadliness for an instant, despite her size and delicate, almost childlike beauty. Her eyes flashed in the light like an animal’s; also yellow, but a warmer, more golden shade than Spider’s. Her clothes had been lace and velvet once, something lovely, but now they hung in stains and tatters.

“You’re turning up quite often lately,” Spider said, still frowning. “One might mistrust it.”

Azarne smiled-or bared her teeth; Isyllt couldn’t be certain. Either way, fangs flashed white, incongruous behind her tiny rosehip lips. “There’s much to mistrust in the catacombs these days. Thieves and schemes and strangers.” Her eyes flickered over Khelsea, and Isyllt thought she saw disappointment there. Ciaran often had that effect on mortal women-why not undead ones too?

“I’m Isyllt,” she said, stepping forward and holding out a hand. “And my friend is Khelsea. Fewer strangers now, at least.”

Azarne stared at the outstretched hand as one might at an unexpected dead mouse. Then she reached out and clasped it briefly, cold and light, with the echo of a courtier’s grace. “Manners,” the vrykola said, with a sound that might have been a laugh. “I remember those, I think.” She sank into a curtsy, ruined skirts pooling around her. Broken chains and jeweled pins glinted in the tangled mass of her hair. “I am Azarne, called Vaykush.”

Owl, the word meant in Skarrish. She looked it, with her wide eyes and small round face. And that would explain the faded accent, though her vowels didn’t sound quite like those Isyllt heard in the markets. How long since Azarne had last seen Skarra or Iskar?

“Pleased to meet you,” Isyllt said, the ridiculousness of the scene nearly making her head spin. From Azarne’s brief twitch of a smile, she appreciated the absurdity as well. Spider simply glowered.

“Since we’ve all established that we don’t trust each other,” Khelsea said, “shall we keep going?” She tugged the chain free of the broken lock, and the gate squealed inward.

“You’re hunting Myca, aren’t you,” the vrykola said. “And his friends.”

“Yes.” Isyllt raised her eyebrows. “Do you object?”

“They tried to kill you and your musician. They would break the truce and bring the armies of daylight down on us all. I remember the last time that happened.” She stripped the sleeve from one narrow forearm, baring the scar-slick ridges of old burns. “I’ll help you stop them.”

“As you will,” was all Spider said. He turned between heartbeats and ghosted down the corridor.

Isyllt and Khelsea exchanged a glance, then resumed their hunt. Azarne drifted behind them, as silent as her namesake.

Another stretch of tunnels, these rougher than before, less traveled by sewer workers. Isyllt could feel the difference in her head-not the sharp chill of death, but a cool stillness. The absence of life, not the end of it. It might have been soothing, but her legs ached and the constant witchlight was giving her a headache.

The knowledge that she was lost did nothing to ease it. Khelsea’s map was a comfort, but even that wouldn’t help them if they turned into one of the uncharted tunnels. She felt like a spirit caught in a maze-trap. Better, she supposed, than being caught in a labyrinth, and circling toward one certain fate.

A rustle of parchment drew her out of her brooding. Khelsea unrolled the map and stopped to frown at it. Isyllt leaned close to look over her shoulder.

“What is it?”

“We’ve been going south all this time, more or less.” One dark finger tapped a section of faded lines and branches, slid down the paper and stopped against a darker, wider line. “Which means we’re going to hit the river soon.”

“Problematic,” Isyllt murmured. No architect was mad or ambitious enough to dig under the Dis; the sewers on either side were unconnected.

“I told you-” Isyllt stiffened to realize Spider was right beside them; the map crinkled in Khelsea’s hands. “There are passages not on your maps.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing, or you’ll bring the whole city down one day.”

“Not on accident,” Spider said with a grin. “Come on-we’re almost to the crossing.”

“On second thought,” Khelsea muttered, “next time you can take the minstrel.”

The crawlspace was as close as Spider promised, at least. A narrow crevice in the wall, barely wide enough for a man to squeeze in. It shivered in Isyllt’s head as she leaned close-not human magic, but the same sort of glamour that Spider wore in the city streets. Most eyes, she suspected, would slide over it unnoticing.

“Be careful,” Spider said. “The way is steep and long.” He twisted sideways and vanished in a pale blur.

Isyllt and Khelsea exchanged a glance. “Well,” the inspector said. “Go on.”

“I’ll be right behind you,” Azarne added, with only the phantom of a smile.

Isyllt glared at both of them, then sent her witchlight into the fissure and followed it down.

“Steep” was an understatement. Her boots slipped and slid, and bits of rock skittered down into the darkness ahead of her. Her hands soon ached from bracing against the wall. The roar of the sewers faded, leaving the ringing in her ears and the harsh echo of her breath. Sweat ran down her back, slicked her scalp and squelched inside her gloves.

“This wasn’t quite the sort of misadventure I had in mind,” Khelsea muttered. A rivulet of dust and pebbles spilled from beneath her boots, rattling past Isyllt into the echoing darkness.

“Watch out,” Spider called from below. “The way branches here, and you have to turn.”

“Or what?” Isyllt asked, breathless.

“Or you go all the way down. It only gets steeper.”