Chapter 20
Aoife let out a breath that turned into a laugh—soft enough it might have been a sob’s cousin. “Well,” she said, wiping water from her face, “I’ve had worse baths.”
Reynnar dragged a hand through his hair, sending a spray of cold droplets across both of them.
Elara blinked, sputtering as the water hit her. “Really?” she muttered, swiping at her face.
Aoife gave a theatrical sigh and flicked some back at him.
“At least it’s clean,” Reynnar said, grin quick and crooked. “After weeks on the run, I’m not above recycled bath water.”
They moved forward again, and the channel changed.
The rough ribs of the older aqueduct gave way to smoother construction.
Stone became plastered walls, pale and carefully finished, though time had stained them with damp halos.
The air warmed. The current slackened until the water pooled around their calves instead of driving at their knees.
The farther they moved, the heavier the bathhouse scents grew—steam, steeped herbs, soap—while the sour breath of river water faded behind them. The water around their legs had changed as well, cloudy now instead of dark, silkier against the skin, as though oils had bled into it.
Without warning, a bucket of warm water crashed through the grate overhead, drenching them in a sudden cascade. Elara gasped as it hit her face; Reynnar cursed beside her. Aoife bit her sleeve to smother a laugh, one arm thrown across Caelion’s mouth before he could make a sound.
Eamon stood frozen in the runoff, pale hair plastered to his skull, thin streams dripping from his temples. For a heartbeat, he looked less like an heir of the Seat and more like a very wet, very offended rat.
Another bucket crashed down.
Then silence.
They froze, shoulders hunched, listening. No alarm followed. Only the muffled scrape of wood above and a distant voice complaining about the temperature.
Slowly, they lifted their heads.
Above, the ceiling broke into a series of rusted iron grates set at intervals along the channel.
Through them drifted the everyday life of the bathhouse above: the slosh of basins, the murmur of idle conversation, once a bright ripple of laughter.
They returned to their trek down the tunnel until Eamon lifted a hand, and they halted in unison. His gaze tracked upward.
“That grate,” he whispered. “That’s our way out.”
Before anyone could object, he jumped, caught the iron scrollwork, and hauled himself up just long enough to peer through. Rust flaked under his grip. A breath later, he dropped back into the channel with a soft splash.
“Empty.”
Elara stepped closer, studying it. Along one edge, the mortar had failed, leaving a narrow gap that could be widened with leverage. Beyond it, steam-blue shadow pooled.
“Boost me up,” Elara said, glancing back at Reynnar.
He lifted her to the ledge beneath the grate as she braced one boot against the wall and used the heel of her hand to test the first seam.
It gave reluctantly. When it did, the sound wasn’t a screech but a low sigh, swallowed quickly by mud and stone.
Eamon’s hand settled at her shoulder, and together, they levered the corner enough that Aoife could slip the thin wedge beneath and hold the gap without effort.
Steam softened the carved lattice to lace.
Beyond it, water poured with a steady hush, attendants’ voices rising and falling in time.
The air smelled of orange peel and sandalwood, sweetened by soap until it felt almost edible.
Inside lay a laundry—damp underfoot, ropes crisscrossing overhead, sheets and robes pinned to dry.
“Change,” Eamon said. “Nothing recognizable leaves with us.”
Aoife surveyed the loose drawstring trousers and soft house shoes with visible displeasure.
They changed quickly.
Elara wrapped a dove-gray shawl over her damp hair and shoulders—covering her ears.
She glanced at Reynnar. He had already gathered their discarded clothes and lifted the lid of a copper pot at a hard boil.
Steam curled around his wrist as one by one, he fed their soaked garments into the roiling water, pressing them down with a slat of wood.
The service exit opened to a square of pale light at the top of a short stair.
A low grate covered it, mottled green with age.
Caelion knelt, and the air stirred faintly around his fingers as he ran them through the hinge to quiet it.
With the smallest lift, the grate rose in his hands without a sound.
They slipped through the bathhouse’s rear yard and into the lane beyond.
The upper quarter felt different at once.
The streets were wider, the stone pale and neatly laid, the buildings rising in smooth terraces of plaster and carved wood.
A boy passed carrying a small cage with a songbird inside, the little creature hopping from perch to perch.
A woman followed with a tray of glass bottles filled with tinted oils.
Their clothes flowed in pale shades—foam, pearl, moss, washed jade.
Neither spared the group more than a passing glance. This was not a place that looked for trouble. It assumed it did not exist.
Eamon tipped his chin down the lane, signaling them to follow. He led them along the canal for a time before finally lifting his hand and pointing to a house set tight to the water.
Maistir Odhrán’s home was three stories of old plaster, with shutters that had been repainted so many times the grain had given up and, centered on the door, a brass knocker shaped like three fish in a ring.
Eamon knocked once, softly.
The door opened a moment later, letting a thin ribbon of lamplight spill into the yard and revealing the figure of a male. His shoulders curved inward—not from weakness, Elara thought, but from long acquaintance with desks and pages, the posture of someone who had spent years bent over thought.
Bright, quick eyes swept over the strange group gathered at his door. The hem of his worn robe was tugged absently as he fished a pair of thin-rimmed spectacles from his pocket, settling them low on his nose before freezing.
“Eamon? What in the deep are you doing here?”
Eamon inclined his head slightly. “Good evening to you as well.”
Before the Sídhe could reply, a draft slid down the narrow lane behind them, carrying the night air with it. It curled through the group like a curious thing—lifting the damp strands of Elara’s hair that had come loose, stirring her shawl.
Odhrán went still. His eyes widened, then sheened with keenness, the quick intelligence within them turning wary. He leaned forward slightly—not toward Eamon, but toward Elara.
“You brought a human into the upper quarter.”
“Half,” Eamon corrected.
“It makes no difference.” Odhrán stepped back half a pace, one hand tightening on the door. “Do you understand what you bring with you? The attention this invites? The risk?”
Eamon shifted slightly into her space—not enough to hide her, but enough to break the directness of Odhrán’s stare. “I understand exactly, which is why I brought her to someone capable of appreciating what she represents.”
That, finally, pulled Odhrán’s eyes back to him. Eamon held the look.
“She grew up there,” he continued. “In Latheria. In their sanctums. In their courts. She has lived inside their systems her entire life.” He stepped closer, lowering his voice.
“You catalog scraps of rumor and secondhand accounts. You rebuild entire histories from fragments.” His gaze flicked briefly toward Elara before returning to Odhrán.
“She is not a fragment. She knows how they structure power. How they record lineage. What they hide. What they worship. What they fear.” He paused.
“Think of the record she carries. You could fill a dozen volumes with what she knows. You could answer questions we’ve been guessing at for centuries. ”
Odhrán huffed a laugh. “You always did know where to strike.” His gaze flicked back to Elara. “Can you read their texts?”
“Yes.”
“Original script?”
“Yes.”
“And their dialects?”
She hesitated for only a fraction of a second. “Most of them.”
Something flickered behind his lenses. Interest. Hunger. “You realize,” he said slowly, “that if this becomes known, it will not be interpreted as academic curiosity.”
“I realize,” Eamon replied. “Which is why it will not become known.”
Odhrán’s mouth tightened. He glanced once more down the lane, as though measuring the city itself—the risks, the politics, the consequences gathering around this moment. Then he stepped back from the doorway.
“Get inside,” he muttered. “All of you. Before I come to my senses.”
They moved quickly past him into a lamplit hall that smelled of wood polish and the nearby river.
Books were everywhere, stacked in careful columns that rose and fell with the logic of tides.
Charts covered the walls the way some men hung portraits—shipping routes, rainfall tables, births and deaths recorded in a patient hand.
At the back of the house, a narrow room opened toward a window overlooking the canal, lamplight glinting softly on the glass. And there, pinned to the wall, was a map of Tír na nóg.
Maistir Odhrán did not invite them further in.
Instead, he stood squarely in the entry, lamplight pooling around his worn slippers, and looked them over from head to toe.
It was not a polite look. It was the look of a man cataloging damage.
His gaze lingered there. Then his nose twitched.
“Merciful stars,” he said flatly. “You smell like you crawled here through a drain.”
Caelion grinned. “That would be accurate.”
Odhrán’s mouth did not move. He stepped closer, circling once—not theatrically, just assessing. “You did not come through the gates,” he said.
“No,” Eamon replied.
“And you did not come for pleasantries.”
“No. We needed a way into the upper quarter without notice.”
“That does not explain why you stand in my doorway,” Odhrán said. His gaze flicked once to Elara. “And why you bring—this—with you.”
His gaze met hers, fierce enough to scorch, but she let it pass over—felt its heat, but gave it nowhere to catch.
Eamon stepped forward. “Sídhe are vanishing.”
Odhrán gave a small, dismissive sound. “Sídhe vanish every season.”
“Not like this.” Eamon’s voice hardened. “Maistir, names are being stripped from the scrolls. Entire Turlaith households gone without account. Records altered.”
That caught him.
“You’ve checked the ledgers yourself?”
“Thoroughly.”
“And what were your findings?”
“Inconsistencies everywhere.” Eamon held his gaze. “Enough to suggest design.”
Odhrán’s brow furrowed. “Design?”
“A cover-up,” Eamon said. “A large one. Larger than a single court could manage.”
The words settled into the room like dust after a fall. No one spoke.
Odhrán turned slowly toward his shelves. “You would not be here if you were uncertain.”
“No.”
His gaze flicked once more to Elara. “You’ve brought me a problem,” he said at last. “Which means it is now mine to untangle.”
He turned on his heel. “Sit. All of you.”
Only then did he move toward the table, where a teapot still steamed beside a plate of small, pale biscuits. “A warning,” he said as he poured. “I brew tea with more determination than skill.”
A cup was pressed into Elara’s hands. The liquid inside was the color of varnish and smelled faintly hostile.
She took a careful sip and nearly regretted it.
The biscuit redeemed the moment—crisp, bright with lemon, and clearly made by someone far more competent than the man pouring the tea.
Odhrán watched her reaction with frank interest, then nodded once, satisfied.
“Now,” he said, folding himself into a chair, “we will speak properly. From the beginning.” He ate a biscuit. He winced at his own tea. “How in the deep did a halfling make it into our realm?”
The group turned to Elara. She exhaled slowly and recounted—for what felt like the hundredth time in as many days—how she’d come to be there.
Odhrán listened without interrupting, his expression tightening by degrees.
Once or twice, his gaze flicked toward the shelves behind them, as though already calculating which records he’d need to confirm what he was hearing.
“If what you’re describing is accurate,” Odhrán said slowly, “then someone isn’t merely hiding bodies.” He turned the cup once in his hand, watching the dark surface of the tea settle. “You attempted to present this before the Concord?”
Eamon gave a small nod. “We did.”
“And they denied it.”
“They did more than deny it,” Eamon replied. “They buried it.”
Odhrán absorbed that without visible surprise. “And now you bring it here.” His eyes flicked briefly to Elara. “To me.”
Eamon met the look without blinking. “You keep records no court can alter. In every territory, your ledgers travel farther than decrees.”
A faint twitch touched the corner of Odhrán’s mouth. “Flattery. From you, of all people.”
“It isn’t flattery. It’s fact.”
The Maistir leaned back in his chair, studying each of them in turn before speaking again. “Very well. Let us be plain. If the records here are being rewritten, then we must consider an unpleasant possibility…”
The room fell quiet. No one spoke, because they all knew the thought he was circling. They had reached it themselves weeks ago and then carefully stepped around it, each waiting for someone else to say the words first.
Odhrán set his cup down. “This cannot be the work of a single court. A pattern this careful requires hands in power here to sustain it. A network,” he said quietly. “Clerks willing to amend ledgers. Lords willing to look elsewhere. Messengers who carry orders without asking where they lead.”
He leaned back slightly, eyes narrowing.
“Infrastructure. Which means those in power are not merely ignoring these disappearances—they’re facilitating them.” His voice dropped lower. “Sídhe, working with humans across the veil, trading their own for Uisce knows what.”
Reynnar spoke for the first time. “Will you help us?”
Odhrán gave him a mildly offended glance. “Of course I will.” He turned toward a narrow writing desk against the far wall. “I will check the ward rolls. The river permits. The temple bread tallies. The canal tax ledgers. If a family disappears, it leaves traces in at least three places.”
He reached for a small brass tube mounted near the desk. “And if I find a pattern,” he added, “I will send word.”
“To whom?” Aoife asked.
“To those who count elsewhere,” he said simply. “If something is moving between territories,” he said, “we will not be the only ones to notice. In the meantime, try,” Odhrán continued, eyes settling on Elara, “to avoid being memorable.”
Elara inclined her head. “I have practice.”
“Good.” He moved toward the bolts on the door. “Eamon,” he added without looking back, “if you insist on dragging storms into my house, you may at least help me secure the windows.”