Chapter 14 | Garroway
Garroway
I wince when Sephania kicks in the door like a banshee screaming over a tombstone. With a sigh, I quip, “I thought we were trying to keep a low profile,” but no one hears me.
The small hovel is relatively sparse—cot, small table, a couple chairs, a rack of spices and herbs I assume Kep uses to concoct his drinks next door.
Hearing voices behind us outside, Vallan grumbles, “I’ll keep watch at the door.”
As drunk, nosy passersby begin to creep in to see what all the ruckus is about, Vall’s giant frame takes up the entire doorway. He crosses his tree-trunk arms over his tree-trunk chest and lets out a low hum of disapproval at anyone stepping too close. “Nothing to see here.”
“Hoy, that there’s Kep’s house,” says one lanky man that only comes up to Vallan’s chest. Skittering back a step, he turns to another blind-drunk man stumbling around in the mud. “Ain’t it?”
Vallan is dark in the door, no moonlight on him, and with his hood low no one has spotted he’s a vampire yet.
That’s a big yet. Turning over my shoulder from the side of the room, my little honey badger scuttles around, moving things aside. She gets on her hands and knees and knocks on the floorboards. I say, “Best hurry up, lass, before we draw a crowd.”
“I’m going, I’m going!”
The drunks outside continue arguing. Or maybe this is their version of conversing. It’s hard to tell. There’s more of them now.
“Sure is Kep’s,” says the stumbling fool. “Someone better go tell ‘im he’s been intrudered . . . intruden? Invaded!”
“Infiltrated, I think, is the word you’re looking—”
“Just go, ass crevice!”
“Why me?” cries the first man.
The wobbler points down at his loose legs. “I’m too sauced to stand, much less walk about.”
With a groan, the crier scampers off.
“Ah ha!” Sephania declares.
I spin as she lifts a floorboard and then another. She grins at the dark hole leading into the depths below. A rope ladder hangs a foot down.
“Your watch is finished, big brute!” she yells over her shoulder. “Close the door and lock it.”
Vallan grunts, does as he’s told, then runs a hand through his beard as he stares at the rickety front door Sephania kicked in. “Lock’s broken.”
She’s already halfway down the ladder, and I’m right behind her. Vallan follows us and we hop into a shallow puddle that mucks up my boots.
The stone hallway under the house is narrow. Vallan has to shimmy sideways to fit through, and with Sephania’s substantial backside, she curses as she bumps along. I have no such problem, being a skinny fucker.
On the other side of the hall, a small room opens.
We hear a gasp. Three young Chained Sisters sit on a bench, eyes veering to us.
A grate above lets in a grid of moonlight, brightening the front girl’s pale face.
She hisses and bares her fangs, leaping to her feet to protect the other two younglings, who cower into the shadows.
It’s Tecca, the dhampiress door-greeter from their old hideout who can’t be more than fifteen winters. Or perhaps thirty, since we dhampir age slowly.
Her face goes slack when Sephania steps into the fretwork of moonlight. “It’s just me, Tec,” says the shadow of my lover.
“Sister Sephania!” The angry hiss is gone from Tecca’s face, replaced with a wide smile. She rushes forward and embraces my little honey badger, slamming her face into Seph’s bosom. “Your mother will be so happy to see you.”
Tecca leads us past the entry room, dragging Sephania by the hand. We come to an antechamber that splits in two directions. It’s dark and dank and damp down here. The deeper we go into the “basement” the more I realize this is an entire network of tunnels.
I wonder where the connection ends. Could it stretch across the entire city? Perhaps the Nuhavians have gotten wise and built themselves an underground labyrinth to hide from their Olhavian overlords.
A darker thought makes me wrinkle my nose in disgust. Or these tunnels were built by the flesh-traders to haul their “cargo” from one end of the city to the other without being seen.
The rightmost walkway leads into a wider, oval-shaped cave. Iron Sister Keffa stands at the front, facing us, giving a lesson to half a dozen Sisters. Her head lifts as we pause at the back, first landing on Vallan’s tall frame. Then it falls to Sephania’s smile.
Lyroan, the dhampiress with an unrequited love for Vallan, looks ready to swoon as she jumps to her feet.
Keffa’s smile is warm, and she seems to have aged rapidly in the past few weeks.
The lines on her weathered cheeks are deeper, her gray hair lighter as it forms a wispy halo around her gaunt face.
“Truehearts save us, Sisters, it’s the Hellwhore herself. ”
Sephania sputters a laugh and rushes forward.
Before she can throw her arms around Keffa, a booming voice behind us makes us turn: “Is that my rambunctious, ludicrous daughter I hear?!”
Jinneth barrels into the room, pushing past me and Vallan with ease. Her rotund stature shoves me against a wall as she storms past and joins the three-way embrace with her lover Keffa and her daughter Sephania.
I let out a contented sigh, facing our big brute. Vallan has a small smile behind his beard, which quickly vanishes when he sees I’m watching him. I wink, so he knows I know he knows how to smile.
Seph stands back to look at her mother top to bottom. She frowns at the stump of her left wrist, saying, “How is your hand?”
“Still gone.”
Wincing, Sephania says, “Erm, apologies, Mother. I meant—”
Jinneth lets out a belly-rumbling laugh and slaps her daughter hard on the shoulder, which makes Sephania pitch forward and nearly fall into her.
“It’s only a jest, dear! While I can’t grow back this hand”—she lifts her stump, and then wags the fingers of her right—“I’ve grown double with this one! ”
Sephania gives her mother a crooked smile. She regards the half-dozen Chained Sisters standing about the room in their gray habits, and the group of other girls that have started to mosey in at the sound of loud voices and laughter.
Despite the grime covering every soul here, and the mucky status of the Chained Sisters—chained once more in hiding—there’s hope in this room, an aura of it, that I haven’t felt in an age.
Jinneth squeezes her daughter’s arm with her remaining hand. “Oh! I must show you something, Seph.” A small grin plays on her lips, reminding me so much of Sephania’s more mischievous moments.
Jinneth leads us into another low space that’s stacked high with crates and strewn with four peeling, tottering tables.
Girls stand over the tables, heads bowed, working on tiny plates in front of them.
They dab liquids into other liquids, blacks and reds and colorful concoctions that look like a painter’s palette.
I’m confused at what I’m looking at, but Sephania’s eyes grow wide. She realizes what’s happening here.
With a sweep of her hand, Jinneth gestures at the small workplace. “Welcome to our alchemical station. We work in shifts. So long as we have supplies, we have product. I was hoping for your swift return, my dear, so we might have someone to distribute said product.”
Sephania blinks, astounded. “You’ve . . . done it?”
Jinneth nods, puffing out her chest and putting her hand—and stump—on her hips.
“Production of the Silverblood tincture is in full swing.” Vall grumbles, ready to speak from behind me, but Jinneth cuts him off with a glare.
“Before you say anything, big oak tree, the name is sticking. I know it’s your name for my girl. Too bad.”
Sephania runs a hand through her hair, meandering between the tables where the girls work, inspecting each station. She peeks inside a crate and I hear bottles and vials clinking. “This is amazing, Mother. How did you make this happen with such a small sample of Loreblood?”
Jinneth grimaces and looks at Keffa as she walks in behind us.
“That’s just it, love. We’re running out.
I managed to splice your blood, diluting it, and worked with the same ingredients Old Endolf used to create the first prototype of the elixir.
It will likely be weaker than we hoped . . . for now.”
“Well, I’m here to donate.” Sephania pulls up the sleeve of her forearm and presents a pale wrist. “Bleed me dry, Sisters.”
“Hold now,” Vallan grumbles, waving his hand. “This was not part of the deal, silverblood.”
Seph scoffs. “You can always feed me with your blood and prop me right up.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “It doesn’t quite work that easily, lass.” Slowly, I move toward my mistress, until our bodies are nearly touching. “Unless you’d like to become Vallan’s bloodthrall?”
She pouts. Looks Vall up and down. “I can think of worse fates.”
I roll my eyes. “Honey badger, we need to be methodical about this. Remember what we’ve talked about with your recklessness? I understand you want to save thralls with the Loreblood—”
“Skartovius isn’t here right now to lecture me on my recklessness, Garro, so I’d rather you don’t take his stead. Thank you.” Sephania lifts her chin defiantly, the damned brat. I see doubt in her eyes now, and I hate that I’ve caused it.
“Now, now,” Jinneth says, scooting up against the wall and crossing her arms under her large chest. “Your devilish mates aren’t incorrect. I can’t have my daughter dying on me to provide the stuff we need when she’s the sole provider of said stuff.”
Blood, I think. Say it. It’s your daughter’s blood. I would hate for Jinneth’s ambition to blind her to the realities of what she’s asking of Sephania. Luckily, I don’t think she’s headed in that direction.
“What’s the solution?” Seph asks.
“We can take your blood over time,” her mother answers. “Safely. In the meantime, we have a more pressing need for silver than we do Loreblood.”
Slowly, eyes turn to me and Vallan at the archway of the room, starting with Sephania, then Jinneth, then Keffa.
“Shit.” I toss a thumb over my shoulder. “Have you seen what it’s like on the Floorboards, lass? Houses are burning.”
“It’s a good thing burning doesn’t affect you as badly as it does a vampire then, isn’t it?” She smiles roguishly.
Sephania’s cold words remind me of the things she said about Aelin and her eternal suffering. It throws me off.
Vallan takes my place, muttering, “We’ll find Vanison Shirin, silverblood. He’s somewhere down in these tunnels, I’m sure.”
There isn’t anything I’d rather do less than leave Sephania alone. However, if Vallan believes it’s safe . . . I look at him to make sure he does think that.
“My bloodsight,” Vall explains with a nod. “Come, cub. Let us give Sephania her reunion with her mother. We can be of use elsewhere.”
We turn to leave, but a shrill male voice croons down the hallway.
“Iron Sister Keffa! How can you expect me to keep you safe when men are kicking the door off its . . . hin . . . ges. Oh, balls.” Barman Kep appears from down the hall and sees me before anyone.
“Damn it all!” he wails, throwing his arms up.
“Last time I saw you, I said I never wanted—”
“Me to step foot in your tavern again?” I interject. “I haven’t, dear Kep.” My arms spread wide. “I’m under your house.”
“Even worse, you half-bred cock-sucking—”
Vallan takes the space between us, making everything very stuffy in a heartbeat. He stares down at the shorter man, who is not short by any means.
Kep’s eyes climb the ladder of Vall’s body, landing on his large beard and frowning face. The color drains from his cheeks, until he looks not dissimilar from me or my brother-in-arms. “True fuck me, but you’re a proper massive bastard, aren’t you?”
“No one talks to my cub like that unless they’re part of our band,” Vallan grumbles in his cavernous voice. “You’re not in the band, little man.”
Kep sighs. He tries to look around Vallan’s wide body and fails.
His tone shifts instantly. “Iron Sister, if you needed to allow guests to come see you, all you need do was ask me. I would have unlocked my door. Now it’s broken to shit and there’s a crowd of drunk cock-swingers outside ready to draw weapons if I give them the go-ahead. ”
“Then you’d best tell them to stand down, Master Kep,” Keffa says politely. “These guests were unexpected. Not unwelcome, however.”
I slide out from behind Vallan, an idea coming to mind. “Fuck telling them to stand down. Let them stew in the cold night. I have a better use for you, Kep. You want us out?”
He nods vigorously.
“Then lead us out. Not the way we came in though.” I clap the stiff man on the shoulder. “Your hidey-hole will be man-free once more.”