suspended walkway that ran between a grid of strange, large, metal objects. Each one was enormous, made of black metal and cylindrical. They spread out in all directions in a grid that ran all the way to the walls.
As Sparrow led him away from Sara’s office, which Eli could now see was built into an enormous version of the metal cylinders around them, he leaned sideways and peered over the walkway edge. Despite the light of the lamps burning on the railing, the black cylinders vanished into the thick shadows far sooner than they should have, leaving him nothing to guess how far down they went or where the cavern’s floor lay.
He would have looked longer, but Sparrow nudged him forward, guiding Eli down one of the many suspension bridges that branched off of Sara’s office.
“So,” Sparrow said as they walked in the dark, their boots thumping on the suspended wood. “Why did you turn yourself in?”
“Who said I turned myself in?” Eli said. “This is quite an involuntary incarceration.”
“So you just fell out of the sky?” Sparrow laughed. “Well, you picked a good time to do it. Word is that Den the Warlord was killed in that scuffle in Osera. The Council’s going to need the cash on your head to pay that tab when the king comes to collect. Say, didn’t the king of Osera used to be your swordsman? That must be terribly awkward.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eli said cheerily. “My only experience with kings is stealing them.”
“Of course,” Sparrow said. “How could I forget? You should know that they’re keeping your capture very hush-hush at the moment. The Merchant Prince has put the soldiers who caught you on lockdown, but that’s only a temporary sop. The Council is a sieve for information. I wouldn’t be surprised if the story wasn’t all over the continent by day after tomorrow. After all, it’s not every day you catch the greatest thief in the world.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Eli said, his voice echoing strangely off the dark metal cylinders. “But what makes you think I care about how Whitefall’s handling my capture?”
“Just didn’t want you to blow your escape early,” Sparrow said. “I know you like to make an impression. If you escape tonight, before anyone knows the Council has you, it would be a waste.”
“Escape?” Eli scoffed. “Impossible. I am a model prisoner. Though I must say you’re being an uncommonly thoughtful jailor.”
“I’m a very thoughtful man,” Sparrow said, bringing them to a stop at a gap in the railings. “Watch your step, please.”
They descended down a narrow stepladder into the dark. The great tanks rose around them like iron trees, dark and foreboding. Every noise Eli made seemed muffled, and the farther he climbed, the worse it got. It was like the deeper they went, the more the silence swallowed them, until, finally, they reached the cavern floor.
Eli’s boots hit the stone without a sound. Far overhead, the lanterns on the walkway shone like lights from a distant shore, but down here there was nothing. Only a blackness so heavy it pressed the air from Eli’s lungs.
Tugging his rope, Sparrow led Eli between the tanks. He tapped each one with his fingers as they passed, like he was counting. Eli tried counting, too, but he lost it quickly. The air around them was so oppressive it was actually distracting. It took all his attention just to walk without falling. They went on like this for close to a minute before Sparrow stopped without warning and began feeling around on the floor with his foot.
When he’d found what he was looking for, Sparrow kicked his leg up before bringing his heel down on something large, metallic, and hollow. The blow landed with a muffled clang, and almost at once, something scraped in answer. The grind of stone on metal was shockingly loud in the dense silence as the floor in front of them slid away to reveal a darker, circular patch of blackness two feet across.
“Right,” Sparrow said. “In you go.”
“Down there?” Eli said, leaning over to peer into the abyss.
“ ’Fraid so,” Sparrow said. “I suggest you get climbing, because in another five seconds I’m just going to push you and be done with it.”
Eli gave him a nasty look that was sadly lost in the dark. Finding the ladder with his feet, he started to climb down. But just as his head was about to vanish through the hole, he felt Sparrow’s cool hand close on his shoulder.
Eli froze, waiting. For one long second, he thought Sparrow really was going to push him, but nothing happened. Instead, Sparrow’s smooth voice whispered in his ear.
“She offered me a deal, too,” he said. “I took it.”
“Really?” Eli said, keeping his voice calm. “How’s that working for you?”
It was too dark to tell properly, but Eli got the distinct impression Sparrow was baring his teeth. “I just spent two weeks chasing a girl, a dog, and a bear-faced man through howling wilderness. Before that, I spent nearly as long trying to lay a trap for you in a city full of savages. I almost died both times. This was nothing out of the ordinary. How do you think it’s working?”
“Right,” Eli said. “I get it. You don’t like it here. But why are you telling me? I have absolutely no intention of taking up Sara’s offer.”
“Neither did I,” Sparrow said, patting him on the shoulder. “Keep that in mind, Mr. Monpress.”
Sparrow’s grip vanished after that, and Eli resumed his descent. It was so dark he couldn’t see an inch in front of his face. He navigated by touch alone, climbing the rough metal bars down, down, down, until, after thirty rungs, his feet hit stone.
The sound of his boots hitting bottom must have been the signal Sparrow was waiting for, because as soon as he stepped down, Eli heard the metal door fall shut.
“See you tomorrow for breakfast.” Sparrow’s voice was muffled as he stomped on the metal again, locking it in place. “Meanwhile, enjoy the company.”
“Company?” Eli shouted. He held his breath, but no answer came. Either Sparrow was waiting to see what he would do or he’d left too quietly for Eli to hear. Both were likely. Gritting his teeth, Eli turned away from the known enemy to face the unknown.
What kind of company had Sara arranged for him? Probably something to keep him too busy to escape, pit of snakes or something of that sort. Well, Eli smirked, he’d dealt with pits of snakes before. He just needed to—
A soft scrape cut his thoughts off cold. The sound was very close, maybe a foot away. Eli dropped to a crouch without thinking, his hands going for Karon’s burn before he remembered it wasn’t there. Dropping his arms with a silent curse, Eli put his back to the wall. He was staring into the inky black, ears straining as he considered his very limited options, when a light flared.
He blinked at the sudden brightness, covering his eyes. When he could see again, he dropped his arms and risked a glance to see who, or what, had caused the light.
Etmon Banage was sitting on the floor across from him, a candle flame flickering in the air above his palm. “Eliton?” he said softly, blue eyes going wide.
Eli cursed again, loudly this time. Why couldn’t it have been snakes? As the Rector Spiritualis started to get up, Eli flopped back against the metal rungs and wondered what he’d done to deserve his horrible, horrible luck.
After dropping the thief into the second half of this impromptu family reunion, Sparrow turned to more pressing matters. He jogged back to Sara’s office at the chamber’s heart, dropping his speed to nothing the second it was in sight. His footsteps became like cat feet, and even his breathing slowed to a whisper. Utterly silent, Sparrow removed his garish coat and hung it on the railing, leaving him in only a plain white shirt and brown trousers.
Without his coat to announce his presence, none of the dense clusters of technicians so much as glanced at him as he let himself into the lower level of Sara’s primary tank. Usually, when he entered the more delicate areas of Sara’s operations, the wizards made a great show of snubbing him. They hated that a spirit-deaf criminal had better access to Sara, greatest wizard of the age, than they did. Now his presence didn’t even draw a sideways look, not even when he walked directly behind them. Their obliviousness was almost enough to make Sparrow smile. His curse was the joy of his life, sometimes.
Unseen and unnoticed, he walked right down the middle of the room, passing workbenches filled with glass decanting pipes and trays of empty crystal spheres. Everything here was spotlessly clean, from the polished metal walls and floor to the white coats and gloves of the wizards to the sanded tables themselves. Sara’s wizards worked in pairs; one held a glass pipette filled with a tiny amount of water so blue it almost seemed to glow. The
