new for her team. But maybe Sicarius wanted to protect her. Or Sespian. If people were dead down there, something had to have killed them.
“ We’ll all go,” she said.
“ Akstyr.” Sicarius jerked his chin. “Enter.”
Akstyr drew back. “What? I don’t want to go first if there are bodies.”
“ There may be booby traps,” Sicarius said. “Science-crafted ones.”
“ But…”
“ I will also lead. To check for mundane traps.”
Whether due to this addendum, or the unwavering stare that accompanied it, Akstyr’s shoulders drooped and he didn’t utter a further protest. “Fine, but I want a light.”
As Sicarius ducked into the darkness beneath the stage, Amaranthe handed Akstyr one of the lanterns. “Be careful.”
Her words were for both men, but only Akstyr responded, voicing a sullen, “Whatever.”
He clunked his head as he scrambled through the trapdoor, inspiring a string of curses involving street licking and donkey balls.
Amaranthe lifted her eyebrows, silently asking if Sespian wanted to go next or take up the rear. He gripped the edge of the square opening and stared into the gloom. Akstyr’s light played across crates, mesh bags of ice skates, and disassembled acrobatic apparatuses.
“ Sensing dead people isn’t a skill I inherited either,” Sespian said. “Are you sure about this paternity link?”
Amaranthe smiled. “I can see it even if you can’t.”
“ Well, at least he never hit me. That’s more than I can say for my-Raumesys.” Sespian slipped through the low opening with more alacrity-and less head bumping-than Akstyr had demonstrated.
“ I can see it even if you can’t,” Amaranthe repeated in a whisper to herself as she reached for the panel. She doubted anyone would wander into the dining hall in the middle of the night, but it wouldn’t hurt to camouflage their route. She propped the panel against the wall, hiding the under-stage entrance, and scooped four screws into her hand. Sicarius had left them in a tidy row by the molding after he’d removed them, but, on the off chance that someone did discover the panel ajar, she didn’t want anyone to have the idea of screwing it back into place. Especially not if there were bodies down there.
Holding the second of the group’s lanterns, Amaranthe hustled after the others, half-crawling, half-crouching in the three-foot-high space. Though most of the gear appeared to belong to the circus troupe, and would have had to have been recently loaded, the air smelled of dust. And mold. And… Erg. She crinkled her nose, catching the meaty odor Sicarius must have noticed. Well, he’d warned her.
“ Yup, that’s a body all right,” came Akstyr’s voice from ahead. “One of those enforcers. Not stinking much yet anyway.”
Sespian peered back at Amaranthe, and she had no trouble reading his your-people-are-ghouls expression. She twitched a shoulder and scooted closer.
“ He triggered a trap,” Sicarius said. “Hold while I check for others.”
Amaranthe held her lantern up, hoping for a better view of the storage area, though she regretted it when her light illuminated suspicious dark stains on the ceiling. Mold, mildew, and… was that dried blood? Maybe on a previous voyage, the stage had hosted duels or gladiator matches for the diners. What she didn’t see anywhere was anything otherworldly.
“ We haven’t gone beneath the deck yet, have we?” Amaranthe asked.
“ No,” Sicarius said. “There’s an entrance over here.”
With Sespian and Akstyr in between her and Sicarius, Amaranthe couldn’t see where he pointed. “Any traps?” she asked.
“ They’ve been disarmed by people bumbling into them,” Sicarius said. “Akstyr. Science?”
“ We’re definitely close to something,” Akstyr said. “Several somethings. I can’t tell if anything is a trap, but… I think they’re all lower than we are.”
“ Understood,” Sicarius said. “Proceeding.”
Amaranthe paused when she drew even with the dead enforcer. He didn’t have any obvious wounds. “What killed him?”
“ Poison.” Sicarius had disappeared into a crooked aisle of crates, and his voice came back muffled. “Look at his palm.”
Amaranthe gingerly maneuvered the arm to reveal the enforcer’s palm. Rigor mortis had come and gone, so the man had been dead a couple of days. Since before Akstyr, Maldynado, and Yara had come searching, and since before any enforcers had known her team was on board. Amaranthe examined the hand. A cut marred one finger. Such a small mistake to lose one’s life over. Surely, she’d committed numerous larger errors.
Sespian touched her shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“ Yes, thanks. Let’s just… be careful and get out of here.”
“ Yeah,” Akstyr said. “It’ll stink down here in a few days.”
Sespian glared in his direction. “Do you ever want to smack him?” he whispered.
“ Daily,” Amaranthe said.
She maneuvered past the dead enforcer, careful not to step on him, and picked her way over a pile of cleated shoes and into the crate aisle to join Sicarius. He knelt before an iron grate set into the floor. A shiny steel lock unblemished by rust or corrosion appeared to be a recent addition. A yellow glow emanated from somewhere below. Amaranthe wriggled closer, but whatever accounted for the light wasn’t directly beneath the grate. The only thing in view was a tiny mirror and a sliver of brass lying against the darker metal of the ship’s hull. A key, she realized. For the grate lock? If so, a lot of good it did down there. Maybe the enforcer had stolen the key, dropped it down there by accident, and tried to get a look by lowering a mirror. She’d never know for certain; whatever curiosity-or orders from superiors-had driven him here had killed him.
Sicarius was in the process of unstringing a trip wire so slender Amaranthe wouldn’t have noticed it in the dim lighting. He laid the small coil next to a couple of pins beside the grate.
“ The traps are disarmed.” Sicarius withdrew his compact lock-picking kit.
“ Wait,” Akstyr said. “There’s something about that lock. You’d almost miss it, compared with the power oozing off whatever’s down there, but it tingles a bit.”
“ With… magic?” Sespian had joined them around the grate.
Akstyr nodded. “And I think… What is that down there? Beside the mirror. There’s an aura about it too. It’s Made.”
“ It’s a key,” Amaranthe said.
“ In all senses of the word,” Akstyr said. “I bet if you stick a pick in the lock, you’ll trigger a trap. That key’s probably the only thing that works. I wonder how the enforcer got his hands on it.”
“ Maybe they’ve been tracking this shipment for some time,” Amaranthe said. “Any chance you can nullify the trap, Akstyr?”
“ I don’t know. It seems intricate. Good, quality work. Why don’t we just get the key?”
Amaranthe waved at the crisscrossing grate bars. “I’m the smallest one here, and my arm isn’t going to fit through any of those holes.”
“ Do you sense any other Science about the grate?” Sicarius asked.
“ No, just the lock. And the key.”
Sespian poked the grate with one finger. When nothing happened, he tried to pull it open. It didn’t budge. He offered a sheepish shrug. “You never know.”
“ There were nets back there,” Sicarius said. “Someone make a length of rope.”
“ Fishing?” Amaranthe asked, though she didn’t know how they’d hook the key. It didn’t have a hole, and it lay flat on the hull.
Sicarius didn’t respond. He’d drifted off farther down the aisle. He must have some idea.
Amaranthe returned to the bags of ice skates, opened one, and removed a couple of laces. She tied them into a three-foot long string and returned to the grate. Sicarius had found a nail-or, judging by the splinters clinging to the head, pried it out of the stage framework. He pulled out a compass, laid it on the floor, and aligned the nail just so. He unsheathed his biggest knife, a singled-edged serrated blade that could cut firewood if needed, then
