Holding on to Hemmit as tightly as he could with one arm, he reached out, trying to get hold of something. Rocks slipped through his grasp, tearing at his fingers. His lungs were burning, he couldn’t last much longer. It had to be too late for Hemmit.
He crashed into a large rock, and that pushed him up, above the surface. He gasped, getting as much air in his mouth as water, but still there was air. He struggled to hold on to that rock, to plant his feet, to get his bearings, get Hemmit out of the water.
He managed to get his feet under him, brace himself on the rock and push himself up. Air, sweet air, at last. And the dimmest of light.
He was in another wide chamber that the river cut through, and in the dim, he could see the current slacking off and forming a pool to one side. Forcing himself to hold strong, he hauled Hemmit over his shoulder and took a step into the current, then another, and another, until he reached the pool. From there, he was able to pull himself and Hemmit onto dry stone.
“Hemmit,” he said, touching the man’s face and chest. “Talk to me, man.”
Hemmit groaned.
“You all right?” Dayne asked.
“Got . . . pretty . . . smashed,” Hemmit said. “I just need a few minutes. Let me lie here a bit.”
“Sure,” Dayne said. He let himself give a prayer of thanks to Saint Julian for this small miracle.
“Where?” Hemmit asked.
“Not sure,” Dayne said. He made himself stand up, get a sense of where they were. A wide cavern, which looked like it was partly natural, and partly carved by human hands. The strangest part was the soft glow of the whole place. The walls were luminous green. “We need to—”
“Lin and Maresh,” Hemmit muttered. “Got to get to them.”
“I agree,” Dayne said. There were several passages out of this chamber, each definitely manmade. But with no sense of how far they traveled, which direction was where, he had no idea how to get back to their friends. There was no way to get upstream from here. “I’m still shocked by the depths of this whole place.”
“We need . . .” Hemmit wheezed out.
“You just rest,” Dayne said. “We’ll find them.”
“Who’s crying?” Hemmit asked.
“What—” Dayne started, and then heard it.
Crying. A young voice.
“The children.”
Hemmit craned his neck to look at Dayne. “Go. I’ll be fine.”
Dayne followed the sound down one of the passages. It was surprisingly clear, leading Dayne to a wide, round chamber with a tall ceiling and multiple passages in every direction. Again, Dayne was astounded by the engineering on display. This place was as much a marvel as the Parliament or the Royal Palace. Not merely the scope of it, but the craftsmanship. There were tall columns in the center of the room, intricately carved with designs.
Sitting on the floor in a ball was a small boy, crying softly.
“Hey,” Dayne said as gently as he could.
The boy looked up at Dayne and screamed.
“Hey, hey, no,” Dayne said. “It’s all right. Are you lost?”
“Stay away from me!” the boy yelled. He spoke in perfect, educated tones for a little boy.
“Are you the young baron?” he asked. “Vollingale?”
The boy’s eyes went wide. “How do you know who I am?”
“Your father, he told me you were missing. I’m here to find you.”
“No!” the boy shouted. “You’re here to take me!”
“I swear, I’m not,” Dayne said. “Look at my uniform. Do you know what that is?”
“No,” the boy said.
“I’m a Tarian,” Dayne said quietly. “We’re here to protect people. That’s what I want to do.”
Dayne reached out to the boy, but then he heard the twang of a bow. He pulled his hand back just before a pair of arrows whizzed through the air between them.
“You stay away from him,” someone shouted. Out of one of the other tunnels, a hooded figure in a crimson cloak charged in, drawing another arrow and nocking it. “Saints help me, giant, I’ll not let you hurt him.”
Before Dayne could speak, the cloaked man loosed the arrow.
The trail led to Keller Cove. Satrine and Kellman had put some pressure on the horse groom, and he quickly confessed to leaving gates unlocked and lamps blown out, having been forced by a gang in Keller Cove.
“We’re gonna be fair with him, right?” Kellman asked as they rode in the Grand Inspection Unit’s carriage to Keller Cove.
“They threatened his sister and niece,” Satrine said. “I’m not inclined to make his life any worse.”
“Good,” he said.
The groom had been more than happy to offer details on the thieves, giving them an exact address to the basement flop of a tenement apartment right next to the charred remains of Tyne’s Pleasure Emporium.
“I’m surprised we haven’t seen more of a surge of gangs and robberies in this part of town,” Kellman said as they came up. “This place employed a lot of people, and Tyne kept a lot of the street bosses in check.”
“Maybe that’s where this gang popped up from,” she said. “But I’ve got my doubts.”
“Why?”
It was moments like this that Satrine desperately missed partnering with Minox. He would pick up on exactly what she meant, which went back to why this case was far more interesting than any of the others on their plate right now. This wasn’t some random break-in. These people targeted Lord Callwood. Their goal was specific. Something so specific, something so secret, Callwood didn’t want to talk about it.
How was that not a burning curiosity?
“Street gangs that pop up from a fallout like Tyne, they don’t get ambitious. They stake down territory, they lick their wounds. They don’t plan a heist on the east side of town.”
“Unless it’s a huge score,” Kellman said. “I mean, I still know folks who know folks in westtown. There’s talk that the Old Lady of Seleth—”
“Maybe,” Satrine said, cutting him off. “But if this is some common gang, I’ll give you a crown.”
“Deal,” Kellman said, going down the steps to the basement door. He gave it
