Chapter 36
We found the corridor with Lewis’s and my cell by pure happenstance. Running footsteps heralded the approach of guards and we diverted down a narrow staircase, winding down half a dozen steps and twisting into an awkward junction between new walls and old.
I recognized the familiar pattern of grey and red stones and started to run down a fresh corridor. More barred doors. More cells. I glanced into each, resisting the urge to call Lewis’s name.
Finally, I found ours. The bag that had been over my head when I was brought down still lay on the floor and the cot—
The cot was empty.
Lewis staggered into sight beyond the bars, blind in the darkness and clutching a bloodied temple. “Ottilie, he’s—”
I was slammed into the wall, a hand around my throat, another twisting my wrist. My sword clattered to the floor.
Wake snarled in my face.
Then he was torn away. Harden followed his initial assault with a straight punch to the nose, then took the other man to the floor in a heap. A pistol discharged with a burst of light, momentarily blinding even me.
Wake roared.
“Lewis!” I cried, stumbling around the wrestling forms. I could barely breathe, my throat aching, lungs struggling to recover. “I have… I have the…”
I shoved my pistol through the bars and waved it wildly. He took it without a word, directing it at the battling pair. Lewis’s weight was decidedly on one leg, the other still thickly bandaged and showing signs of bleeding again.
I shoved a key into the lock as Harden and Wake continued to exchange blows. Another gunshot went off and Wake shuddered, but did not go down. Harden did, though. His knees hit the floor.
Harden’s face began to turn ashen as Wake Leeched his life away, healing himself.
“Lewis,” I gasped.
“No more bullets!” I felt his hand close over mine, taking charge of the keys. “Go!”
I lunged for my fallen sword. In one smooth movement I snapped it up and threw myself at Wake, screaming unintelligibly as I did. My feral attack had the desired effect—he broke off murdering Harden, but that brought his full attention back to me.
Something inside me cowered as he straightened. In the sepia world of my Entwined sight, the blood on his face was black. His rage appeared mindless, his expression grotesque.
I stabbed him. The monster turned, taking the point of my sword to the meat of his shoulder instead of the tender flesh of his throat. He reached out at the same time, seizing my sword by the crossguard and clearly intending to jerk it from my grasp.
I abruptly let go. Wake staggered back, tripped over Harden in the confined space, and went down.
I launched after him, kicking vengefully at his kidney. Though satisfying, this was unwise. He grabbed my ankle and pulled me to the floor. I nearly landed on my own sword and heard a clatter as it was knocked away.
The breath punched out of my lungs and my energy flagged. Gaping like a fish out of water I rolled, scrabbling for my sword. I found Harden instead and commandeered his arms to haul myself upright.
“Em! Move!” Lewis shouted.
Harden hauled me backwards. I toppled into him, kept only from falling by his now firm barrel-hold on my upper body.
The door of the cell slammed open, taking Wake full across the side as he found his feet again. He staggered, stunned, and toppled backwards into the deepest shadows.
He did not reappear.
The three of us stared for a long moment, fists and weapons ready, breaths harried and rough.
Still, the Moonless did not come. Instead of feeling relief I felt increasing dread.
“Where did he go?” I whispered.
“Away to lick his wounds,” Lewis replied.
“To steal the life from someone else before he takes another run at us,” Harden summarized. Harden hauled one of Lewis’s arms over his shoulder. “Hey there. We need to go.”
“Emrys,” Lewis rasped back with a pained half-laugh. “You know a way out?”
“I do. Ottilie? You hurt?”
“Nothing that will stop me,” I said truthfully.
Harden led us through the dark, not deftly by any means, but successfully. The sounds of continued conflict echoed through the passages, along with distant, ground-shaking booms. But we were alone, surrounded by our own footsteps and ragged breaths.
Every moment, I expected Wake to reappear. Every second he did not ratcheted up my anxiety, until I would have set the whole catacombs ablaze just to scatter the shadows.
When the red rock of the old substructure dominated, Harden released Lewis and motioned to a slim hole in the wall.
It was flush to the floor and no more than a foot high.
It had been covered by a grating, evidenced by the iron mesh set off to one side.
But now it yawned open, and the sound of running water came to us.
Running water and distant, distorted voices.
“Just my people,” Harden explained. “The water isn’t deep.”
“Go first,” I urged. “So none of them shoot us.”
Harden hesitated, then nodded. He lowered himself down and dropped through the gap. Lewis cast me a glance, as if he intended to force me to go next, but refrained. More slowly and painstakingly, he copied Harden and vanished.
For a breath I was alone in the passageway, with its shadows and eerie echoes. I checked the pockets of my stolen coat, ensuring the relics were secure, then shimmied after the men.
I dropped down a bare four feet. The tunnel was startlingly low, and Harden and Lewis were bent near in half. Still, my relief at being out of the passageway, on the way to escaping the citadel, left me half-delirious with relief.
Both of them reached hands for me, at the same time, and I cracked a smile. “Gentlemen,” I chided. “I cannot hold both your hands.”
Harden grinned back at me.
Lewis gave a huff. “I still cannot see a thing.”
“I can hold your hand, too,” Harden offered him coyly.
“You may have to carry me by end of this.”
I slipped my hand into Lewis’s. Harden set off, and Lewis and I followed carefully behind.
Voices reverberated eerily off the walls. Their hushed, susurrating nature only increased the strangeness, filling the sloshing quiet with the rasping whispers of spirits and ghouls and Moonless monsters.
Soon, we encountered a knot of Separatists. By the time the tunnel broadened and we could stand, we trailed twenty other escapees.
“We are in the sewers,” Harden murmured. “Beneath the old city.”
We reached another grating, a massive blockage of thick iron bars.
These had been filed down, a task that must have taken a great deal of time to do surreptitiously.
We stepped through onto a narrow walkway of stone, clinging to the side of a canal.
Distant light could be seen from both directions, and I realized that this was one of the areas where Old Harrow’s canals ran under the buildings.
We gathered in the shadow, just before the line of light. The other Separatists had gone the opposite direction after a murmured conference with Harden, streaming off and dissipating into the light. A distant boom welcomed them to the sunlight again, and somewhere off in the city a siren wailed.
Harden, Lewis, and I were alone again in the cool darkness.
Harden looked at me. “Your sister’s hotel is on the other side of the city. We’ll never make it safely, not with you hobbling, Lewis.”
Another explosion shook the ground, affirming his statement.
“So is The Three Trees,” I pointed out.
“There are other safehouses.”
“Yes, well. We can make our way alone, Harden, you have done enough for us.”
He shook his head emphatically. “Bullshit. I’ll see you safe.”
“We will not be safe until we leave the city,” Lewis put in. “Conflict in the streets is one thing. They will be looking for us, specifically.”
“I can get you out,” Harden said.
“All right, make the arrangements,” I conceded. “But I cannot abandon Pretoria and Perry.”
“You are not abandoning them.” Lewis’s response was frustrated and emphatic. “They are probably safer than we are. You are staying alive.”
I looked between the pair of them, both watching me, though their expressions varied.
Harden’s gaze shifted from incredulous to contemplative, eyeing me up and down as if he intended to physically prevent me from leaving, but couldn’t figure out how to do it while holding Lewis up.
Lewis looked increasingly exhausted, a shadow in his eyes that looked almost…
resigned? I couldn’t parse that look, not right then, so I focused on Harden instead.
As my eyes met his, he seemed to yield slightly, not sensing my concession, but understanding that my mind was made up.
“I’m sorry,” I said, realizing what I had to do even as I spoke. No part of me wanted to go, but there was no real choice. “I’ll meet you at The Three Trees.”