Chapter 30
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Thirty
Adam stared into a secret world painted with streaks of filtered golden light, surrounded by soldiers and helpless with dread.
The stepwell was the sort of place he could imagine exploring for days, listening to Ellie ramble on about underground aquifers while she made him survey each arch and angle.
Adam wouldn’t be doing any surveying now. Instead, he was watching everything go straight to hell.
Singh Rao had been the first to descend the ridge, slipping into the ruins with a hand-picked detachment.
Adam had followed behind with Borthwick, Dawson, and Ellie.
When they’d caught up to the advance force, they’d found themselves on the heels of a successful ambush, with Singh Rao’s men guarding a dozen disarmed and battered Adrija.
Jignesh had been among them, his wrists bound. The wiry old hunter’s eyes had flashed with recognition when Adam stepped into view, but he’d kept silent.
Seeing the Adrija caught had brought home how much more now depended upon Adam’s ability to maintain his thin and uncomfortable set of lies.
When one of Singh Rao’s men had reported hearing voices rise from an opening in the ground deeper in the ruins, Borthwick had left the Adrija under guard and navigated his way to the stairwell.
Adam had joined them as they silently descended through the labyrinth of soaring arcades, fearing the worst—and then finding it.
In the heart of the well, Borthwick’s soldiers had fanned out along the gallery and pinned Subhas, Constance, and Neil with their rifles.
The clatter of cocking hammers echoed off the high walls and pillared galleries.
Constance’s hand froze at the pocket of her trousers, where Adam knew her knives were hidden at her thighs.
Subhas’s expression was grimly determined, but he made no move to reach for the antique Enfield slung over his shoulder.
Neil looked scared.
He should be scared. The place was a dead-end trap.
Ellie moved into view overhead, staring down into the well with an expression of terrible worry. Kalb hovered by her legs. The dog didn’t look worried—but then, he probably just figured that Adam would solve the problem. Kalb had complete and abiding faith in the man who snuck him sausages.
Adam had no idea how to solve this.
Borthwick descended to the landing that framed the still pool of green water, pacing casually.
“I was wondering whether you two would turn up again. I must say, I will appreciate the opportunity to find out who sent you here to try to steal my arcanum. And I’m sure you’ll tell me, given the right degree of persuasion. ”
Borthwick’s hand dropped to the coil of his whip, and Adam’s skin went cold.
Of course, the colonel assumed that Neil and Constance must be working for someone who wanted the astra for themselves—a perfectly natural leap of logic for a secret policeman to make.
He’d peel the answer out of Neil’s skin—and expose Constance’s family to the full wrath of the Raj.
Blowing Adam’s cover to hell in the process.
At the sound of Borthwick’s coolly echoing words, Jacobs stepped to Ellie’s side at the lip of the well.
He took in the scene below with a glance—and smiled.
New fear layered over the tension already twisting Adam’s guts. Jacobs would like nothing more than to have Neil and Constance within his reach—giving him all the leverage he needed to force Adam and Ellie to bend to his will.
All of this was extraordinarily bad.
Borthwick was still talking.
“I’m sure we can make this all much easier if you’ll agree to cooperate, Dr. Culpepper.”
Adam frowned. Culpepper? What the hell was that about?
Neil’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Constance looked a little smug.
Dawson’s voice resounded irritably from Adam’s back.
“Doctor who?”
Adam whirled like a man trying to stop a falling vase from breaking, but Dawson had already pushed past him. The professor stomped down to the edge of the pool and jabbed a self-righteous finger across the water to Neil.
“That man’s not Culpepper. That is Dr. Neil Fairfax—though he hardly deserves the title. The man’s grasp of Akkadian is absolutely wretched.”
From above, Ellie made a choked sound as she bit back a protest—probably related to the abysmal quality of Dawson’s own skills with ancient Semitic languages.
Adam felt the situation veer wildly out of his control.
In a moment, Borthwick was going to demand how Dawson knew Neil. The ginger twit would tell him—which would make it very damned obvious that Ellie and Adam hadn’t just randomly happened upon Borthwick’s expedition.
He was about to lose whatever slim chance he had of trying to talk his way out of this situation. He took a desperate step forward, flailing for a way to intervene.
His brain coughed up nothing. Dawson opened his big mouth to answer, and Adam ran out of time.
So he did what he did best and tossed the self-important ass into the water.
A subtle bump was all it took to send Dawson tumbling into the green pool with a splash that washed over the toes of Borthwick’s boots. The professor rose a moment later with an astonished splutter as the soldiers all turned to stare.
Subhas used the distraction. Darting into the cover of one of the pillars, he whipped his Enfield from his shoulder and let off a shot.
The sepoys dove for cover and returned fire.
Constance grabbed Neil by the back of his waistcoat, hauling him into the shadow of a monkey-faced god. She whipped a dagger from her torn-out pocket and threw it at the first soldier who charged toward her.
The man ducked back, raising his rifle with new caution.
Adam read the odds. They weren’t good. He readied himself to wade in, hoping a machete and lousy instinct for self-preservation might be enough to swing the balance.
Then he realized Dawson was drowning.
The professor’s head had sunk below the surface of the pool, his hands flailing uselessly at the surface—because the damned fool couldn’t swim.
“Hell,” Adam bit out as guilt wrenched through him—and he dove into the water.
He snagged a handful of Dawson’s coat as the professor continued to sink. Dawson grabbed at him wildly, wrapping a desperate arm around Adam’s face.
Adam sank too, murky water blinding him.
He wrenched himself free of the professor and gripped the man around the chest, kicking for safety. They burst through the surface, and Dawson gasped in a breath. He was still trying to climb Adam’s body like a tree, and Adam fought to keep from sinking again.
“Take him, dammit!” he barked at a nearby sepoy, half choking on a mouthful of green water.
The soldier dropped his gun to dash forward and haul the professor from the pool. Dawson landed on the paving stones in a wheezing puddle.
Kalb barked overhead, and Adam ducked as a bullet whizzed past his face.
Soldiers ringed the gallery on both sides, using the pillars for cover as they worked to pin their enemies down.
On the right, Singh Rao’s men had figured out that Subhas had to reload between shots.
They charged. Subhas swung the antique gun at them like a club, but the men overtook him, pinning him down.
Another pair of soldiers pushed in from the left, emboldened now that Constance was out of knives.
From behind the monkey god statue, Neil whipped out his sword. Flames burst up Dyrnwyn’s length.
In the flare of light, Adam could just make out a dark opening hidden in the shadows of the wall at Neil’s back.
Borthwick eyed the fiery blade with avaricious interest.
The sepoys regarded the weapon with a less eager hesitation.
“Don’t just stand there!” Borthwick snapped. “It’s only a bloody sword!”
The men rushed in from both sides.
Constance braced her back against the wall, planted her legs on the statue’s rear end—and shoved.
Hanuman toppled from his platform. The massive stone figure rolled toward the soldiers, who stumbled back.
Then it crashed into the columns supporting the gallery.
The pillars burst into splinters, shards of rock flying like shrapnel. Adam flinched back, raising an arm to shield his face where he still floated in the water.
The dust hadn’t settled when a deep, ominous crack echoed dully off the walls of the well. Adam looked up—and watched the columns of the upper gallery pop like firecrackers.
Hands grasped the back of his braces and hauled him out of the water, sliding him onto the stones like a beached fish. Singh Rao’s face hovered over him.
“Back!” the subedar shouted with a furious wave toward the tunnel that led to the stairs.
The soldiers ran, shoving Subhas with them. Dawson hovered in their path, dripping wet and gaping as the floor of the upper gallery began to tilt.
Constance’s face blanked with shock. Neil paled with horrified understanding—then grabbed her and threw her into the darkness behind them.
“Adam!” Ellie screamed from the top of the well, where Jacobs held her back with an arm around her waist.
Singh Rao yanked Adam to his feet, shoving him into the tunnel. Adam half fell into cover as a crash roared through the well.
Dust rolled over him like a cloud, choking his lungs. Adam coughed as he staggered back to his feet and spun to see what had happened.
The back half of the upper gallery had collapsed. A mountain of stone covered the place where Neil and Constance had been.
Adam pushed toward it, and Singh Rao caught his arm.
“Wait!” the subedar ordered, holding him back.
Adam’s instinct was to fight, but before he could take a swing, another piece of the gallery fell, stone cracking against the floor of the well in an explosion of debris.
He forced himself to hold for a single, terrible breath as the rubble slowly settled, then wrenched himself free of Singh Rao’s grip. Fear pounded through his chest as he skidded around the well to the broken heap of stone.
Neil had taken Constance toward the door Adam had glimpsed from his position in the well. Had they made it inside? Had anyone else seen that shadow-cloaked opening in the wall?
He had to think. He had to be careful, even as his heart screamed for him to start hauling away the stones and shouting to wake the dead.
Reveal nothing. Not the door. Not his connection to the people who might be trapped inside. Adam had to keep every advantage he could get—and pray it would be enough.
“Culpepper?” he called, his voice catching roughly on the false name as he waited desperately for an answer.