Chapter Six

A CREW

Midge was loitering outside, chewing on pipe leaf and spitting as far as he could. ‘Good haul?’

‘Enough to keep us fed and watered for another few months,’ Riveno replied.

I caught Midge’s eye before we left the streets behind us, and he gave me a slow nod.

Within the Buried & Lost, Riveno thumped his fist on the walls. ‘We got some work to do!’ he yelled to his crowd of children.

Yver and Ganner were hovering near the workshops. They let the others take the sack from Riveno and spill it on the table for sorting. Minor squabbles broke out between the other children, a perfect distraction to sidle my way to Yver’s side.

‘Well?’ asked the girl as she thumbed at one of her piercings. ‘What did Riveno say about you know what and nabbing that thing from you know who?’

‘Subtle. And he said no to the whole idea, is what. Said robbing Wrekham was too dangerous. Told me it would spill blood on Canarva’s streets,’ I replied. ‘Looks like we have to do this without him after all.’

Yver whistled. ‘Watcher. Do we want that?’

I crossed my arms. ‘He was trying to scare me. Put me off the idea.’

‘You don’t seem the sort to get scared easily, Dwellin,’ said Ganner. The boy had a habit of staring at me while wearing his greasy smile, and today was no different. I hadn’t wanted to involve him in my plan, but despite my best efforts, he had overheard me talking to Midge and Yver, and I’d had little choice but to make him a part of the daring burglary I was set on. At very least, he had a thing for fine mechanisms and a way with locks, or so he told us. The rougher types of Canarva's gutters and some of Mop Mattox's older children had always talked about "the crew" when it came to pilfering or teaching somebody a lesson. I had chosen my crew carefully. Half of Riveno's children had mouths that never stayed shut. The rest were too young, too unfamiliar. Ganner was the lock-picker. Yver was the one who could talk her way out of trouble. Midge was the muscle, something that apparently every crew needed. Who was I to argue?

‘I’m not scared,’ I muttered.

‘So what did you see in the mines? Is there a way to Wrekham’s like you hoped?’ Yver asked. It had helped immensely that she had known the toils of a baron’s mansion, and hated their kind equally. The chance to teach them a lesson was one she was eager for, especially if there were shells to be had. Once I’d decided I needed help, she had been my first choice.

‘I didn’t get a chance to see,’ I said, staring at Riveno. ‘but I’ll know soon enough. There’s a map in Riveno’s coat pocket that we need if we’re going to find a way behind Wrekham’s walls and guards.’

Yver and Ganner switched glances. ‘You didn’t say we’d be stealing from Riveno as well,’ she said. ‘I don’t like that one bloody bit. He’s been good to us. I might have lifted a few things before but I never stole from somebody that hadn’t pissed me off first.’

‘Borrowing, not stealing.’ There was a fine difference. ‘And it’s only a map. We’ll put it right back.’

‘Riveno’s going to fucking murder us when he finds out.’

Ganner tutted mockingly. ‘Backing out already, Yver?’

‘Shit, no. I want to get out of Canarva. If this bloody prize, whatever it is, is worth what you said it’s worth, I can buy his forgiveness.’

‘It will be worth it. It’ll change all our lives. It has to.’

I didn’t know then how right I was. ‘Have you seen Aberan?’ I asked. ‘Haven’t told him, have you?’

Ganner ran a finger along his lips. ‘Mouths shut just like you told us about a dozen times. Nobody knows but us. Few ways to split it.’

‘We’re splitting this between everyone, Ganner,’ I sighed. ‘I’ve told you that a dozen times, too.’

‘Aberan’s in his bunk as usual,’ Yver informed me. ‘Barely come down today except to piss.’

I looked up to the jumbled eaves of the Buried & Lost, where a shape huddled in a blanket had its back turned to me. My insides tied themselves in a knot as I climbed the stairs.

‘How are you feeling, brother?’ I said to my brother, voice cracking high.

Aberan did not even look at me, never mind respond. He was clutching a small hammer in his hands. His knuckles washed red and white as he squeezed it over and over.

‘Have you eaten? I can make you something.’

I watched Aberan purse his lips. Every part of me but one wanted to escape the guilt and leave, but I forced myself to sit just outside of his eye-line.

‘You’re… you’re looking better. Startling to heal up.’ I reached for a strand of hair that looked to be bothering the wound, and he flinched away.

‘Don’t,’ he uttered, voice raspy from disuse. The first word he’d spoken to me in days.

‘You blame me, don’t you?’

Aberan took a painful age to shake his head. ‘What are you doing with those others? Up to something dishonest?’ He asked, eyes flitting to me, lightning brief.

‘Nothing,’ I lied. He would have manacled me to one of the pillars if he knew what I was up to, or disown me for good.

‘I know you, little sister.’

‘Something good. Something that will help. Something that we deserve after all we’ve been through.’

‘Something to do with Riveno?’ he grunted. I saw the distrust in the sneer he made.

‘Riveno’s not the problem. Not what you think he is.’

Aberan put his chin to his chest. ‘We can’t stay here. You know that, right?’

‘In Canarva?’

‘With him. Riveno. I don’t like any of this. You spend hours in that cupboard of his, playing with that powder. If it doesn’t get you killed or Blighted, it’ll put you behind bars again, Watcher knows I’m right.’

‘Why don’t you trust me?’

‘Really want to pull at that thread, Dwellin?’ Aberan growled. ‘You know I trust you.’

‘And I know you, brother. I know there’s something in your mind behind your eyes… eye.’

‘That’s just it,’ he hissed, dabbing at his cheek. ‘One eye.’

‘What?’

‘One eye taken.’

‘The prophecy?’

‘The prophecy. I remember every word. “A child of gutters and ashes weaned. One eye taken gold token’s sheen.” ’

I’m sure he expected me to have the same clunking moment of realisation. I did, to tell the truth. The realisation hit me like sun rays breaking the morning dark, but when words escaped me and stared at him blankly, he looked away with a scowl.

‘You think the prophecy is about you, Aberan?’ I asked.

He took a loop of fabric from his lap and gingerly placed it over his face and wounded eye. ‘What other good could come of this situation? I’ve been thinking about this for days and I’m certain. This is what we’ve been waiting for.’

I should have been happy. I know I should have. I tried, believe me, reader. Every soul in the Holy Realms dreamed of being the subject of prophecy, of being chosen by the Great Watcher. All I felt was nausea. My mind’s eye conjured all kinds of scenarios of Aberan being whisked away by Venerance clerics. Of me trapped behind walls and gates a gutter rat couldn’t enter. Of a brother gone and a sister forgotten.

‘Riveno says this prophecy is dangerous, that even the Venerance—‘

‘I don’t want to hear it!’ he snapped. ‘This is what changes everything for us. This is what mother was talking about. It has to be.’

With blood rushing to my face, I silently disagreed. I didn’t need to speak for him to understand. I watched Aberan seize a sack he had already packed with the clothes we’d been given.

‘I’m going to the temple today, Dwellin.’

‘You can’t just leave me.’

‘I’m not leaving you. I’m—’

The ring of the shop’s bell stalled us both. It brought the whole of the Buried & Lost to a halt. Ever since the visit from Wrekham and the prosecutors, the Buried & Lost had stayed cautious.

Riveno looked up at me from the floor of the shop. He had been watching us.

A pale face of a young girl poked through the shop’s curtains. ‘S—somebody’s asking to see you, Riveno,’ she stammered.

‘Who? Drakka? Wrekham?’

The girl shook her head. She looked stunned, as if somebody had whacked her with a club before sending her through the curtain. ‘I… I think… she’s a…’

Curiosity filled the shop. Riveno took off his cloak and threw it aside, revealing an equally black shirt that covered everything but his hands. I caught Yver’s eye and nodded. I could see her mouthing her curses as she nonchalantly neared the cloak, stuck her hand in its pocket, and nabbed the fragment of paper.

I bounded down the stairs after Riveno, skipping half of them to land with a thud by the table. Others were already crowding the curtain to peek. I snatched up a handful of the junk and kept close in Riveno’s wake. Much to the whispering of the others, I pushed through the curtain with him.

A lone woman filled the emptiness of the shop. All the customers ever saw of the Buried & Lost was a closing hand of shelves stuffed with minor trinkets just for show. This arrival somehow made the space seem smaller. Darker. Even the candles bowed before her.

Beneath the cape and cowl of powder blue, a silver armour covered every inch of the woman’s body. Gems of light studded the breastplate, pulsating with a pearlescent glow. The skin that showed was tanned darker than any Ashlander. Hair black as a Canarva rock flowed down one side of her face and onto her back.

It was the woman’s right arm that transfixed me. A thick vambrace of black and dun metal wrapped her skin from elbow to wrist. Steam or smoke wafted from between its plates. Sweeping Holy Realm curves mixed with what looked like Augur lines. It looked interminably heavy, but the woman couldn’t have cared. She was bound with muscle and did a fine and effortless job of blocking out the door. I doubted I came up to her chest. Riveno was outdone by a full head of height, and was half her bulk.

I had heard enough stories to know it was a swordsaint that stood in the Buried & Lost.

Riveno saw me in my peripheries, and I saw the narrowing of his eyes. I played at placing items on shelves, but he waved me out sternly.

‘Leave the waif to her business, Riveno. I’ve not come here to say or do anything untoward,’ rumbled the woman. She put a foot forwards to make the floorboards squeal. ‘Riveno Reck. Still alive, I see. I thought you’d died in your uprising. What a pity.’

Riveno looked far from pleased with his visitor. ‘The feeling’s mutual, Orzona. I was wondering which swordsaint would be coming to Canarva. I thought it’d be somebody more… important.’

Riveno made no sense. I could feel the power wafting from the woman like heat from a blazing lamp.

‘What a place you’ve made for yourself here. Who would have thought? The great Riveno Reck, now a humble shopkeeper.’

‘And what of you? Still on your patron’s silk leash? Where is your master then? I imagine she’s not far behind you, as I thought I could smell the waft of her stench on the southerly winds. Must be something interesting that’s coaxed you out of Bashkar for once, like crows to a corpse.’

I tried not to perk up and almost dropped the singing box I pretended to dust.

‘Oh, Riveno. Times have passed you by, haven’t they? We don’t deal with such petty matters any more.’

‘Why have you come here? To bother me? Come all this way to unearth old arguments decades dead?’

‘It’s my job to ensure nobody interferes with the Reverent Lectra’s business. There are few people in this ash-ridden hole that like to interfere more than you. And none more capable of doing so. I’m here to check you’ve kept your promise. Your agreement with the Venerance was quite specific. Your life for your magic.’

‘I don’t deal in magic any more,’ Riveno said flatly. ‘Sorry to disappoint.’

I stared at Riveno as the swordsaint began to patrol the counter and shelves, picking up various objects. Questions filled my head like a swarm of irate wasps.

Orzona paused, holding a crystal bowl, giving me the chance to see an intricate mechanism on her right forearm, full of cogs and machinery I’d never seen the like of. A single gear the width of a saucer sat in the middle of the mechanical mess. It was a gear of midnight black, intricate to a point my eyes couldn’t understand, and through its cracks, a white light glowed fiercely. It must have been a Godgear, and the first I had ever seen.

Orzona caught me gawping, and a smile spread across her tanned, weathered features. I noticed a silver trace of a scar running along her jaw. ‘Do you know who you’re working for, girl?’

I nodded, matching her olive stare with mine.

She snorted. ‘I don’t think you do. Sad, Riveno, that your only friends these days are the wretches you scrape off the street.’

‘Somebody’s got to remember where we came from. Orzona.’

As the swordsaint moved, I saw the pistol on her belt. They were as rare as a clean worker in Canarva, something that the richest flaunted. The pistol’s blightcore held a soft amber glow. I could count the metal balls in its hopper.

‘I’ll be watching you closely while I’m in this Watcher-forsaken city.’

Riveno crossed his arms, drumming fingers on his hand of thick gnarled skin. ‘Say hello to Baron Wrekham for me.’

Orzona said nothing at first, and the hardening of her face told me all I needed to know. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know who that is,’ she said with a curled lip.

As the swordsaint turned to open the door, I saw a stable worker sprinting past. Others were scrambling in the same direction. His shout filled the shop.

‘They’ve found a chosen one!’

Aberan burst through the curtains beside me, eye wide.

Orzona stared between the three of us. As she examined Aberan, she laughed, sounding like a saw through wood. ‘Lucky for you, looks like I might be here less time than I thought. Watcher keep an eye on you,’ she said, before ducking under the frame and into the street.

‘Back in the shop,’ Riveno ordered us.

‘Riveno—‘

‘Back in the shop!’

Yver and Ganner echoed each other. ‘They found someone already?’

Riveno’s silence was telling, and he was powerless to stop the flow of children from leaving via the other door. Aberan moved with them, and I stood torn between my brother and Riveno. The man held me with troubled eyes. In the end, my brother won, and I chased after him.

The streets were a mess of people jostling to get to the temple’s plaza. The crowds were twice the size of the day we’d first heard the prophecy. Aberan forgot me in his eagerness or distress, I couldn’t tell which. He very nearly lost me in the crowds until I seized his arm.

A cheer rolled through the crowd. I climbed an ash-covered rain barrel to see above their heads. Yver and Midge were standing ahead of us.

‘Yver! Who is it?’ I yelled over the noise.

A chubby fellow all in purple answered us between bobbing up and down to see. ‘Salamander hunter. Grew up right here on the streets. Said he found a golden pearl inside a bog salamander’s mouth. Lost an eye doing it, but what a mere prize.

Through the mottled ash I saw a young man in patchwork scale mail waving to the crowds. A long tail of white hair ran down his back. In his hand he clutched a blood-smeared, golden orb that caught the torchlight with every wave. A wound much like Aberan’s split the man’s face from hairline to neck.

‘One eye taken for gold token’s sheen,’ I said aloud.

Aberan’s jaw was clenched hard. He caught my glance and shouldered forwards so I couldn’t see his face.

The front ranks of the crowd was chanting a name. I couldn’t hear it, but it sounded a lot like “Arsehole!” to me. The hunter was enjoying the attention far more than he should, flapping his arms like a drake as he climbed the stairs of the marble altar. The clerics hovered about him, trying to hurry him along.

A Venerance pious ascended the altar with a preacher’s cone in his hand. While he cleared his throat with a hacking cough, the inferior clerics draped a white and blue sash over the hunter before raising their arms to the Watcher. The pious put his mouth to the small end and bellowed across the plaza.

‘Presenting Arso Lon, candidate for the chosen one of the Canarva prophecy! Watcher’s call be answered!’

Arso had the balls to bow and grin at the crowd before the cleric led him away. He looked the kind that was always eager to give a speech, and I’m glad they didn’t let him. He was whisked off to the grand gates of the white marble temple and practically shoved inside.

The pious began his prayer of thanks. I turned my ears from his droning voice and the same old Venerance words, giving thanks and glory and fear to the looming Watcher above. Aberan turned away completely, walking slowly through the masses.

‘Aberan,’ I called after him. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To get my stuff and go knock on the temple gates,’ he told me, words spilling from him.

‘But they’ve found someone.’

‘He still has to be tested. And there can be more than one candidate. It happened in Jakah, and they found two swordsaints for the same prophecy.’

‘Golden token, Aberan,’ I blurted.

He whirled on me. ‘What?’

‘What golden token is there, Aberan? The hunter had the salamander pearl, but what do we have? You only fit half the words, Aberan. I’m sorry but it’s the truth. I can’t watch you get your hopes up.’ It was the truth. I told myself that over and over to ignore the relief I privately felt.

Aberan took a deep breath in through his nostrils and stared up at the Great Watcher. ‘Guess mother was wrong after all,’ he muttered before walking away. He left me there despite me calling his name three times.

I felt the shadows of Ganner, Midge, and Yver at my back. Ganner put a friendly hand on my shoulder and I shrugged away. Far too friendly, if you ask me.

‘We still on for this little plan of yours, Dwellin?’ Midge grunted as he scratched his armpit.

Yver placed the folded map into my hand. I fought not to scrunch up the paper as I saw Aberan’s form disappear into the streets.

‘Now more than ever,’ I said. I owed Aberan that much. I thumbed the lizard-scratch writing and rough diagrams of a mess of tunnels. Several black lines poked under the wall of Canarva, and it was those I stabbed with my finger.

‘But first I’ve got to do a little exploring of my own.’

I didn’t show it, but a trickle of sweat ran down my back, cold as a northern breath of wind.

*

Myers was asleep against her spear. Riveno should have waited until night and saved himself some shells. My feet made no sound in the layer of ash. My breath was held behind the mask I had borrowed from the workshop.

The door squealed like a coward tortured, but inch by inch, I eased it open wide enough to squeeze through. The innards of the tower enveloped me in a darkness thicker than the night beyond the walls and the reach of torchlight. I waited until I had pawed my way to the ladder before pulling the pilfered candle from my haversack. I’d wanted to steal some blightpowders, but somehow that didn’t seem right. Flint, the steel of my borrowed cleaver, and some tinder made the wick glow.

I could hear my heartbeat thudding through my chest. My breath stuttered while I looked down into the maw of the mine. I could still feel the touch of whatever had pawed at my foot earlier that day. I shivered even as a warm breath of air wafted up from the pit, volcanic bitter, that fart smell of sulphur.

When faced with a moment of fear, you have two choices: flee it, or stand your ground and face it. There is a third option I never give credence to, which is curling up into a blubbering heap in a puddle of your own piss. Aside from coming close in the Prisons of Moonmoth, I’d never yet seen anything terrifying enough to have that effect. Yet. Don’t you worry, dear reader, this was just the beginning of my foray into dark pits of fear.

The iron of the ladder sung as I stamped my foot onto it. I raised my candle and watched black night skinks scarper from the edge of light. Their long claws made echoes whisper. Deep rumbles drifted through the rock. The mines that still spewed ore never stopped. Shifts mined through the night and day to feed Canarva’s crucibles. No matter how distant, the noise of others – other humans – down in the mines was a shred of comfort.

My cleaver shone in the candlelight. Wax dribbled down my knuckles as I kept it aloft. Once more, between my footsteps, I heard the chittering of something unseen beyond the reach of my light.

‘Just lizards and insects,’ I lied to myself. The thought that this might be a terrible idea grew more repetitive, louder. Normally I trusted the unease in my gut, but I had a job to do.

Heading the opposite way to Riveno’s tunnels, I studied the map between every step, counting bores and junctions, and flinching more and more at every glimpse of a skink-tail or scuttling spiders. I would have been utterly lost without Riveno’s map.

After what felt like a mile, I sensed the breeze switch directions from tussling my hair from behind to smacking me in the face with the distinct smell of human waste. It was perturbing how used to it I was becoming. A fly buzzed into my candle with a hiss. A green moss began to grow across the ceiling of the tunnel. The gradient beneath my feet started to reach upwards.

Riveno’s map began to lose detail at the edges, which was where I had reached, and three identical bores now stood before. I saw the fork on the map, but as for where each led, it was now down to me.

A scratching spun me around. Rubble clattered. I menaced the shadows with my cleaver, even giving it a few practice swings to show I meant business. Silence, darkness, stench reigned, and in the lands of these three rulers, I pressed on down the left tunnel, which I hope would lead to the northeast of Canarva, where a certain Baron’s mansion stood.

The rock beneath my feet became dirt, and though the muck started dry it became wet by the end of the curving tunnel. I would have liked to tell you it was simple mud, and I’m sure a lot of it was, but there was no denying what truly flowed downhill along the tunnel’s floor.

Soon enough, the mine looked more like sewer to me. Either the miners had dug too deep or the sewer-diggers had been lazy and claimed the mine as a cesspool. Old rockfalls had crumbled from the walls and ceiling. Boreholes had been blocked up. I had to change directions several times into other tunnels, scratching new lines on the map with some extra charcoal every path I took. An old gate had once barred the way, but had since rusted through at the bottom from the effluence. Something had bent the bars outwards, and I didn’t fancy hanging about to ponder what. Noises beyond the dripping and tapping of tiny claws still followed me.

My walk became a scramble up a slope. The stench became worst. I caught the earthy reek of kitchen scraps, too. Skinks and roaches became bolder, and some of the latter refused to scurry from beneath my feet in time. A faint light lay ahead, coming down from a grate in the ceiling. I had to climb shit-smeared rocks to reach it, and once with my head pressed to the filthy iron, I could see a dark cellar beyond. The only light was the spill of a glow from a door at the peak of stairs. There was a distinct lack of clues as to where in Canarva I was. I poked the candle flame from the grate and peered at the barrels stacked against the walls.

‘Gruber’s Golden Rum,’ I whispered to myself, still oblivious.

I gave the iron a shove. It rasped in its fixtures, lifting ever so slightly, but it was too heavy for my skinny frame. Grumbling, I moved on, following the ever tightening tunnel to where latrines washed into the sewer. I thought twice about climbing up through them. It was the last grate I found that gave me good news. The tunnel under my feet was strewn with bare fishbones and moulded scraps, broken pieces of plate and fruit stones. A kitchen lay above me. I could hear the muffled clatter of pans and bellowing voices. I’m sure I would have smelled their cooking had I not crouched in a sewer. It wasn’t yet midnight, and the city was still very much alive. I pressed up against the grate with my shoulder and felt it budge, but before I could go further, a rattling of a door spilled light into what looked like another cellar, stacked with dusted boxes and hanging sacks.

‘Bloody hold on!’ came an exasperated and straining cry.

I shielded my candle and tucked my feet just as a whole barrel of kitchen waste came cascading through the grate. With the lower half of me soaked, I held my breath and glared up at the ceiling of the tunnel for patience. This would be all worth it, I told myself.

‘Bloody Bunt and his bloody demands!’ came the cursing from above. ‘Yes, Bunt. No, Bunt. Sorry, Bunt! Bloody had enough of this.’

Bunt. I was under Wrekham’s mansion. The crawl through the tunnel of shit had been worth it.

The light went out with the slam of the door, and I was left with my withering candle. Part of me wanted to climb up into the cellar that very moment and burgle Wrekham’s mansion myself, but I was ill prepared. With a snarl, I turned. Clutching the cleaver tightly, I scrambled back the way I had come, both elated to have been right and yet concerned what I would run into.

I had almost reached the mine tunnels when I stopped dead in my tracks. Two pinpricks of green light awaited me in the darkness ahead. My heart stuttered. They looked far too like eyes for my liking. They did not move. They did not blink. I held out my cleaver, turning the light over its blade, and stepped forwards. The lights did not move.

‘Yah!’ I yelled, trying to scare it away and handle my own fear at the same time. My options had been reduced to one: there was no fleeing to be done in the tunnels. The lights blinked, one at a time, but they did not quail. I heard something rasping against stone and cut the air with my blade.

I have always been of the opinion that though the gods of the ancients are long dead and gone, their spirits remain. Spirits of luck, perhaps. Spirits of mischief. Spirits that ensure in tense moments, things will only get worse. I have also always vowed that if I ever found one of the latter, and caught it, I’d show it how worse things could get.

A singular drop fell from the ceiling with perfect aim. It snuffed my candle before I knew what was happening. Darkness swooped, and within a moment, I was blindly flailing with a cleaver. I dreaded it actually connect with anything, and confirm my worst fears I was not alone.

I scrambled to find my flint and tinder, almost dropping the candle in the dirt. One strike of the flint showed me what hid in the darkness. It came in a flash, but a gnarled shape stood a spear’s reach down the tunnel from me. Another scrap of the steel, and the tinder flashed into life. The weak flame showed me a cowled and wrinkled visage, a foot from my face. Its skin was like rock, grey and gnarled. A sooty, gap-toothed smile leered at me, opening wide. Black eyes with green specks burrowed into me.

I recoiled with fright and aimed a mad swing at the monster. It missed, and I was left on my back, feet kicking like an upended turtle in panic. In the sputtering light of my candle, I watched the creature stand over me. I considered hurling the nearest rock at it. Before I could and to my surprise, it spoke with the voice of an old woman.

‘Pay me no heed, child,’ she croaked.

Wiping sweat and muck from my eyes, I stared harder. It was an old woman, terribly Blighted and hunched. When I found my feet, I stood a head taller than her. I heard scratching behind her, and other green specks could be seen shuffling from the darkness. I retreated, cleaver shaking in my hand.

‘Who are you? What by the Watcher do you want?’

The woman breathed, a snake’s hiss. ‘I saw you lost in the dark.’

‘I’m not lost. You’re in my way.’

‘Yes, you are, child,’ the woman snickered, showing her rotten teeth. The woman shuffled closer.

‘Back up!’ I yelled.

The Blighted held out a crooked and blackened hand, fist clenched and knuckles to the ceiling. At first it looked like she was aiming the worst punch the Holy Realms has ever seen, but then she turned her wrist to open up her palm. Three glass vials lay between her skeleton’s fingers, smeared in mud. Something green, yellow, and blue hid within. ‘These will light your way.’

It was an old habit of the gutters to never spurn a free gift. I looked closer at what lay in the clutch of her hand. ‘Blightpowder?’ I asked.

The woman tried to take the hand I held the cleaver in. I shrank away, nervous of touching her. To the crackling of bones, she laid them on a rock instead, then stepped back to regard me. That smile like a burned fence tugged at a memory.

‘Do I… Do I know you?’

‘No, but we have met before.’

The memory came clear: she was the Blighted servant from the hotwells, the night Aberan and I had fled Wrekham.

The woman nodded as if reading my recognition. ‘We will meet again.’

A distant clang of metal made me flinch. I held the candle high and saw the other Blighted figures recoiling into the dark.

‘You have spent too long here,’ she told me. ‘You should leave.’

‘You’re right about that,’ I replied, already trying to edge around her. I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the vials of blightpowder. I snatched them up and wiped them on my muddy shirt before I hid them in a pocket.

‘Burn bright a broken heart led not astray,’ the old crone croaked one last time to me, before she receded into the gloom beyond my candle. Two green speck eyes remained to watch me leave, and leave I did, with feet pounding between the rubble and iron cart-tracks. I could have sworn something now chased me, and it was no Blighted old woman and her tunnel-folk. I heard the drumming of feet. Multiple feet. Claws grating on stone.

I poured every scrap of speed into my legs. When I reached the ladder, I was in such a sprint, I almost tore my fingers off seizing its rungs. I dropped the candle behind me, taking only the cleaver, and before the flame died in the dust, I was already halfway up the ladder. I caught the wet glimmer of scales in its last glint, but didn’t dare tarry to find out. With skinks fleeing out of my way, I threw myself onto the dust of above-ground.

While I snuck back out of the tower and between the never-ceasing lines of carts and wagons, breathless and clutching the gifts of the strange woman, I came to a realisation: I much preferred rooftops.