THIRTY-EIGHT
Athud echoed in the tunnel. Calum’s head whipped round.
“Aly?” His heartbeat thumped in his ears as he waited for a reply. “Aly!” There was no response.
He had no idea how long the tunnel went on for, how deep it penetrated beneath the city. Perhaps she was just too far to hear him.
But he had heard the thud and the crash, and the fear coiling in his gut told him she was in danger.
He drew in a breath, ducking under the doorway and into the tunnel.
The ceiling was low enough he had to stoop, and he walked, crouching, as panic squeezed his ribcage.
The walls closed in on him like the walls of the cellar Caoimhe had locked him in, the salty smell of the sea crowded out by the musty stench of the underground tunnel.
Air sawed in and out of his throat and he stumbled backwards, gulping down the briny air as he spilled out of the tunnel. He pressed his head against the damp stone wall, closing his eyes and willing his heartbeat to slow.
He couldn’t do this. It was too small, too dark, the low ceiling too oppressive.
But the tunnel remained eerily silent. With trembling fingers, he pulled out his pocket watch, tilting it to catch the moonlight.
She’d been in there far too long. He called out Aly’s name again, straining his ears for a response.
The stench of smoke wafted towards him on a breeze, his muscles contracting as he realised it came from within the tunnel.
He sucked in a mouthful of salty air, forcing himself forwards into the passageway. With every lap of the surf against the dock, he tensed, afraid he’d hear the door scraping shut behind him, imprisoning him.
His stomach lurched. He forced out an exhale, summoning lights to illuminate his path. Panic tightened his lungs as smoke scorched his nose, its black plumes suffocating his lamps.
Dread hung heavy in his chest as he turned a corner, his pulse pounding in his ears. Lanterns lit the way to a pile of barrels and boxes—and flames, spreading across the floor, consuming the wood shavings and dried moss strewn across the storeroom.
Terror squeezed his throat. “Aly!” His voice was a rasp, obliterated by the roaring of the flames. Calum’s heart constricted. Aly was on the other side of the flames, alone because he’d been too cowardly to help her search for the ointment.
A flash of blue tweed caught his eye and he staggered over to it, his heart plummeting as his fingers closed around the wool. It was a bolt of fabric, nothing more.
He snatched it up anyway, batting at the flames. It was little use—there was too much fuel in the storeroom—but it cleared a precarious route.
Smoke stung his eyes and nose and he coughed, spluttering, as he pulled his coat over his head. Sweat streamed down his face as he stumbled forwards, blurring his vision while the fire scalded his lungs.
He forged onwards for what felt like an eternity.
He should have reached her by now; the room couldn’t be that big.
Where was she? He could have been turned around—it was impossible to see with the smoke darkening his vision.
His eyes darted from side to side, catching a glimpse of the flames to his left.
A muffled groan sounded at his feet, so quiet beneath the popping of the flames that he thought he’d imagined it, but he looked down to see Aly lying on the ground, unresponsive.
Relief sluiced through him. His coat slid down his shoulders as he crouched to scoop her up. Her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, and the sight loosened the vice grip on Calum’s ribs.
“I’m here,” he murmured, staring down at her blanched features. Her left shoulder jutted out at an unnatural angle. “We’re going to get out of here.”
The fire roasted his face as he turned to the mouth of the tunnel. Flames licked over the barrels to his right, but there was a narrow path to the corridor along the left side of the room.
Blinking away the smoke that stung his eyes, he took a step forwards.
His foot landed on something round, sending his leg flying out from under him.
He stumbled, his legs flailing wildly beneath him as he crashed into the stone wall, the impact pulsing through him and eliciting a grunt of pain from Aly.
“I’m sorry.” His voice scraped out, roughened by smoke.
A jar of shimmering salve rolled away from his feet and under the edge of a box.
The fae ointment. His muscles groaned as he shifted Aly’s weight and squatted next to it, stretching his arm out to reach it.
The fire was hot at his back, sweat making his shirt cling to his skin.
His instincts screamed at him to leave it, that it would do them no good if they were cooked to death, but Aly’s weight in his arms made him push on.
She’d risked so much to obtain it already. They had to finish it.
His tendons strained as he reached under the box, his heart in his throat as his palm slid over the stone.
Soaked in sweat, his hand slipped across the glass, sending it rolling further under the box.
Calum bit back a curse, patting wildly on the stone floor before he finally managed to close his fingers over the jar.
“We did it, Aly,” he rasped, flicking a glance at her face. “We got it.”
Both arms cradling her unconscious form, he staggered to his feet and stumbled through the smoke, coughing into the wool of his coat, until he surged out of the tunnel and into the fresh, salt-kissed air.
Acold breeze drifted off the sea, bringing with it the choking stench of smoke. Pain lanced through Aly’s shoulder as she swayed, each rhythmic lull sending a fresh jolt of agony through her.
She’d been in the tunnel, but the tunnel didn’t bob like a boat on the waves. Had she somehow made it into a boat? She prised her eyes open. Above her, Calum’s face was cast into shadow in the moonlight, the white streak in his hair bright. He was carrying her.
“Put me down.” She flapped her hand against his chest. His coat reeked of smoke. “I can walk.”
Calum staggered in surprise, sending agony through her. She sucked in a breath, pinching her eyes shut. “Sorry,” Calum said, setting her down as she opened her eyes. He held out a hand to steady her as she found her feet.
Aly peeked at her shoulder, nausea rising in her throat at the sight. “It’s dislocated, isn’t it?” she said, dreading the moment it would be set—and hoping Calum would know what he was doing.
“It certainly looks like it.” Calum’s gaze slid to her. “What happened?”
Aly told him about finding the ointment, about realising it was trapped and being thrown back into the wall—and about dropping the jar in her effort to escape the fire. “The fae ointment.” She stopped walking, her heart plummeting. “I dropped it.”
“It’s all right, I found it,” Calum said, his voice soothing. “It’s in your left pocket.”
Aly twisted, patting her right hand on her pocket, her heartbeat only slowing when she felt the round lump of the jar of ointment.
“You said there was a trap?” Calum said. “When you picked up the jar?”
“Blasted me straight into the wall.”
Calum let out a low hiss. “You’re lucky it didn’t blow your arm clean off.”
Aly’s boot skidded on a cobblestone, and she clenched her jaw against the fresh throb of pain from her shoulder. “If it had, it couldn’t be more painful than this.”
“Well, we’ll be at the hospital soon.” Calum glanced at her, his forehead creasing. “With any luck they’ll have good pain relief.”
Aly stopped so abruptly that Calum continued for several paces before he slowed. “We can’t go to hospital.”
Calum stepped towards her, holding his hands up as though he was soothing a wild animal. “Aly, you have a dislocated shoulder and we both inhaled a lot of smoke back there. We have to.”
Aly’s pulse thudded in her ears and in her shoulder, the throbbing pain reiterating his words. “And tell them what? I was injured robbing a smuggler?” They’d get suspicious, call the police. There’d be questions about how she’d known the tunnel was there, about what she’d been looking for.
“I’ll show them my warrant card and tell them I heard you coughing in a burning building and rushed in to help, but that you have no memory of the incident, and the police are therefore investigating.”
“Is that what you did last time? When Grant . . .” She motioned to her throat, as though gesturing would mitigate what had happened.
“Aye, more or less. I showed them my warrant card and told them I’d found you.
” Calum tilted his head, a soft smile curving the edges of his mouth.
“Of course, then you gave them my surname when they asked for your name, so I found myself having to explain how I’d arrived home to find my wife injured. ”
Aly couldn’t help smiling in return, warmth spreading through her limbs. “You could have said I was your sister.”
“We look nothing alike. Besides, they—well, they all assumed, from the way I—” His cheeks turned pink, and he dropped his chin, shaking his head. “They assumed, and I went along with it.”
Aly stepped closer to him, nudging his arm with her good elbow. “From the way you what, exactly?”
He didn’t look at her, his cheeks flushing. “Nothing, all right? And as long as you’re not concussed again then we can hopefully avoid a repeat.”
“We’ll avoid a repeat by not going.”
“Aly—”
She cut him off with a hand on his chest. “No. Do you know what happened the last time I went to hospital? Not when you took me, but the time before that?”
Calum’s gaze dipped to the bent and scarred pinkie finger pressed against him. “For those?”
Aly curled her fingers into a fist and let it fall to her side. “I set those myself.”
Calum sucked in a breath in sympathy.