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I didn’t hesitate, darting behind the curtain as the gathered performers that had come to watch our feral dance scattered like rats in the sewer.
“Plan?” Paesha shouted, running for the tunnel,
I drew short, yelling for them to stop. “We can’t go through the tunnel. It’s the easiest way to trap us. We need a different way out.”
“On it,” Thea answered, taking a sharp right down a narrow hall.
“Stick with her,” Paesha said, letting me pass. “I have to get Quill.”
“Be careful.”
She yanked me into a hug. “You, too. We’ll be right behind you.”
Moments later, we were sliding behind one of Drexel’s massive art pieces, into a hidden hole in the wall.
“There’s another tunnel?”
The handle of Thea’s hammer, hanging loosely on her belt, slid against the wall of the metal tube as she reached for my hand. “Syndicate use only. No one else knows it’s here, not even the Maestro.”
“Gods. You put this down here with your power?”
“For special occasions like these.” She beamed. “Come on.”
We ran for what felt like forever, twisting and turning through the narrow tunnel buried beneath the city. A masterpiece. A labyrinth depositing us into a small room beneath an old apartment building within the heart of Silbath.
“Keep going. Up these stairs.”
Letting her guide the way, I gripped the iron railing in the hall, taking the steps two at a time, just as she had. “This is Ezra’s old place. We’ve been using it as a backup meeting spot since Orin kicked everyone out of our house.”
“How big is his apartment?”
“Not just the one, silly. He owned the whole building. Four little homes.” Thea took a deep breath, resting her hand on the knob of the furthest door from the stairs we’d climbed. “The others… they can be a little rough around the edges.”
I leveled a serious stare. “So can I.”
“Good point.” She pushed the door open, stepping aside so I could take in the room littered with strangers. In the middle of a long, droopy couch, Elowen sat sandwiched between two men, likely older than Orin. One, the large man that’d helped him the night he’d stabbed me, stood, moving his body as a shield between us.
Elowen shooed him away. “I’ve told you a hundred times, Jarek, she’s perfectly safe. Stop this.” She rose, coming to rest her hands on my arms. “I’m sure you have questions. I’ll start from the beginning. Shall we sit?”
The dusty paintings and tapestries hung along the walls had lost their luster, matching the worrisome faces of the gathered people as they watched the door. The entry room had clearly been transformed into a meeting space, filled with as much seating as they could fit. The lamps were dim, as if to hide the secrets of the Syndicate, and, though it was tidy, dust had begun to collect on the chair rail circling the space.
I followed her to an empty couch crammed in a corner. She lifted a blanket and spread it across her lap, tucking her dark hair behind an ear. “When Orin was a boy, he would bring home every stray child he could find. We’d feed them and clothe them as best we could, offering shelter for as long as we could. We’d asked both kings to help fund the house, to help with food and coin, but we were denied. We try not to get involved with the politics of it all. We just help those who need it and keep our heads down.”
“We’re not here to fix the world,” Thea added. “We’re just trying to make life easier for those who need it most. But some of the people we’d been helping started disappearing. Tolen Santus, for example. And, at first, we thought it was because of you. But even when you were at the house, and we knew you hadn’t left, it was still happening.”
So, they hadn’t been a great crime ring or their own version of the law. They weren’t even warriors. Just a group of people trying to do right by the world.
“That’s why Orin wanted me to stay there?”
Thea stepped forward. “We never meant to make you feel like a prisoner. But we wanted to know what was happening. And we couldn’t risk the Maestro finding out about any of it. We knew he wouldn’t demand answers if he didn’t know anything, so we’ve been working together to keep everything from him, even searching for the Life Maiden.”
I drew back, shaking my head. “Gods, you could have just asked. I would have given you my victims’ names.”
“And trusted you to speak the truth?” Jarek rested an arm on the back of the couch.
“Who are you to question me? You don’t even know me.”
His accusatory eyes narrowed just as the door slammed open, and Paesha, Hollis, and Quill rushed inside.
