Chapter Thirty-Three. Eban
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
EBAN
The passage is lit only by a sliver of light from the burning pandemonium behind us.
Once we turn the corner, that light is cut off, and it’s pitch black.
But the air is cooler. I can tell we’re moving to the perimeter of the building.
Surviving is one thing, but we’re here for something more important.
Of course, I’d rather we pulled off this heist without hundreds of Blackcoats hunting for us, swarming the estate and searching high and low for the interlopers who’d spoiled their gruesome party.
But maybe that will work to our advantage, since thanks to Gin there are literally too many fires to put out at once. And for now we’re hidden and safe.
I run my hand along the walls, trying to get a sense of direction.
This passage continues on and on, winding around underneath the palace.
I worry we’ll eventually end up circling back to where we began.
I pay careful attention to the temperature.
If it seems like we’re getting back to the fire, we’ll have to turn around.
But I’m hoping my instincts are right, that this tunnel we’ve found leads ever downward.
We’ve got to find the relics and retrieve them.
But another thought nags at me. Where was Darius during the so-called tournament?
Did he know he was sending us to the arena?
Why would he want to get rid of us? I’ve never trusted the man, but I don’t understand what he’s trying to do.
He’s the leader of the Lashing, the last free Ophir colony.
A colony, I realize, that’s often under attack, often raided by the very people he’s supposed to protect them from.
Plus, he often does business in Lacon—to make sure he knows what the enemy is doing, he says—so he can move one step ahead. But what if …
“Eban, I think I found a door,” Gin says. “But it doesn’t open. Here,” she says, and guides my hand to what feels like the outline of a door. She’s right, there’s no handle or doorknob.
I feel around the door’s perimeter and remember something similar.
“I think I know how to open it,” I say. “There’s a merchant repository in Lacon with doors like this.
It’s built to trap thieves from being able to escape, but the owners installed a secret latch for themselves that allows them to exit if needed.
” I run my fingers down the sides of the doorframe.
“There it is.” There’s a small indent on each side, at shoulder height, with a tiny latch inside.
I release both latches at the same time, and push.
There’s a screeching sound. Metal bending and scraping. I did it. The door opens. Light streams in. Though it’s dim and yellow, after we’ve been drenched in darkness for so long, it seems as bright as the sun.
Gin slips through the door. I follow closely behind.
We’re in some kind of storage room, where wooden crates are stacked haphazardly near large spools of rope and various pipes and piles of wood. Small, narrow windows near the ceiling provide some light.
Our footsteps are loud in the quiet room. We try to tread lightly, in case someone hears us, but there’s no indication that anyone else is around.
A banging noise. We both freeze. Then nothing. “Just a pipe in the walls,” I whisper.
Without responding, Gin continues creeping through the room, headed for the door on the opposite side. Like the last one, it’s closed, but there’s a handle, and a sliver of light visible from the crack between the bottom of the door and the ground.
When we reach it, we place our ears to the door and listen. “I don’t hear anything, do you?” I ask Gin.
She closes her eyes and leans closer against the door, straining for sound on the other side. Then she opens her eyes and straightens up. “No one’s there,” she says.
We try the handle. It opens easily.
We’re in another hallway. This estate is a maze unlike any other. At least this hall is lit by a succession of oil lamps all along the walls. But we have to choose a fork in the tunnel: Should we go to the left, or the right?
Gin’s eyes close and I can tell she’s talking to her spirit. “This way.” She heads right, walking quickly.
The hall curves around. When we turn the corner, there’s a large open room at the end of the hall. We both come to a skidding halt and step backward, returning around the corner.
“Now what?”
Gin shrugs. She peeks back around the curve to the open space. “Tadhana says we have to go through there.”
“Risky,” I say. “We’d be out in the open for anyone to see.”
“We’ve got to take the chance. It’s the only way to the vault.”
I don’t argue. We practically tiptoe back toward the end of the hallway. In the distance, we hear some kind of thud, as if something large and heavy hit the floor. “What was that?” Gin whispers.
I don’t respond. We stand still, and listen for more, but nothing happens after that, so we continue on. At the opening to the room, we peer out over the shrouded shapes littering the space. “More automatons?”
Gin nods. “Looks like it.”
Some of the objects tower over us; others are short and square. All are covered in cloth. We creep around, using the ghostly figures as shields to hide behind in case someone walks into the room.
Just when I think we’ll make it to the exit without incident, there’s another thud, and then footsteps.
Neither of us speak. The steps are headed in our direction.
Without another word, we duck beneath one of the draped covers.
As it settles around us, heavy footsteps enter the room.
I wish the fabric would stop fluttering, giving our location away.
The heavy steps march closer to us. I hold my breath.
The steps stop. I’m not sure how much longer I can hold my breath. I’ll have to let it out slowly. Don’t move. Don’t move.
Footsteps begin again. Closer. Straight for us.
I prepare to fight. I can take out the guard without a weapon. It’s quieter that way anyway.
The footsteps are right in front of where we’re hiding.
We huddle closer to the giant hunk of metal gears, a half-finished creature of some kind—it’s hard to tell, but it does have some kind of skeletal torso and arms, made up of steel and bolts—and both of us hold our breath.
Footsteps circling us now. I could reach out and grab the guard if I wanted.
But I don’t have to; the guard passes us by.
We wait until the steps recede.
“I think he went down the passageway,” I whisper.
“He did,” she affirms. We don’t need to say the rest—if we’d waited another minute or two, we would’ve been stuck in the passage without any cover to face the guard. Not that the two of us couldn’t handle one Blackcoat. We just can’t afford to draw that kind of attention.
“We need to get out of here before he comes back.”
Gin nods. “And we need to find a way downstairs.”
We leave the room full of half-finished automatons and sneak through another hall of locked doors, and finally find ourselves in the laundry.
The air is thick with the smell of lye, and there’s gray film over everything.
Huge tubs of sudsy water, large enough for multiple people to swim in, lie stagnant, abandoned when the fire broke out.
Drying lines covered with linens hang from the ceiling.
We tiptoe around, ducking behind the wooden tubs. Though the room is empty, anyone could be concealed by the linens, lying in wait.
There are two ways out of the room—a large, swinging double door, and a smaller door on the east side of the room. “Which one?” I ask Gin.
She considers them both. “Tadhana isn’t sure. But I think that one must lead to the service rooms,” she says, pointing to the double door. “And from there, private quarters. The opposite of what we want.” Then she motions to the other. “So let’s try that one first.”
It has a dead bolt, but the knob turns. “They left so quickly, they didn’t have time to lock it,” Gin says as she opens the door.
But our anticipation turns to disappointment. It’s a walk-in supply closet, covered floor to ceiling with shelves. “Guess we’re taking the other way,” I say.
“Not so fast.” Gin steps into the closet and peers around.
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure.” Gin seems to think something is there.
I try, but I don’t see or feel anything other than stringent cleansers and a vaguely damp, mildewy scent.
Gin looks through items on the shelf, moving them out of the way, checking behind them.
She shoves a stack of mops out of the corner and begins feeling the wall, running her hands down the wood slats.
Finding nothing there, she moves on to the next shelf, and then the next, getting more frantic with each.
She pushes supplies away. A small metal bucket falls and clatters on the ground.
“Careful!”
She doesn’t seem to hear me. Her hands reach behind the shelves, pushing. She stops and holds both her hands to the spot. “I knew it!”
Then she begins tugging on the shelves themselves. I help her.
The shelves begin to pull away from the wall. Then the entire wall comes away with them, and I realize there’s actually a secret door, or a false wall, hidden in the back of the supply closet.
One more big heave backward and the entire thing opens up to reveal a dark hole in the wall. We peer in. There’s a stone staircase heading down into the pitch black.
“Good instincts,” I tell her.
“There was a doorway like this at House Eternal,” she says. “Sometimes I put on a servant’s uniform so I could walk around.”
I know it isn’t her intention, but the words sting. I’m jealous of the time she spent there with her Laconian lord. I push aside the negative feelings to focus on the task at hand. “I’ll go first,” I offer.
She almost protests, but ultimately allows me to step past her.