Another torch further down the passage winked at them. No cells yet. Nothing, save stone and firelight, surrounded them both. Their footsteps were near silent as they crept.
Lux sucked a breath and braved a question. “Why should it have been you?”
Shaw paused for so long, she wasn’t sure he’d heard her. She considered asking him again when he said, “I once had a bad habit of taking things that weren’t mine.”
“Like a pickpocket?”
She watched the shadows dance along the pale stones as he shook his head. “No.” He paused, probably musing on exactly how much he wanted to disclose. “Do you know the houses closest to here? The tall ones with stone statues? I’ve been inside them all, and let me tell you, they’re as overdone inside as they are out.”
“You’re a thief.”
What next? An expert poisoner? A drug harvester?
“Not anymore. It started off as a test of skill. I simply wanted to see if I could.Young and senseless. But what I found, the excess, how it was just…strewn about. I grew so angry. It was unfathomable how little we had. How little weallhad. We worked so hard, and still we went to bed hungry and woke the same. I stole jewelry that night. A couple of baubles I figured wouldn’t be missed, and once I hawked them, I divvied up the coin with everyone I knew. The next time, I was able to give to those I didn’t know. And the next, and the next. Years of it.
“But I misjudged the room one night, and I was found out. The Shield showed up at my family home hours later. Enough time for me to hide the coin, but not enough to concoct a believable alibi. My father—” He cleared his throat. “We looked alike: same build, similar hair. He took my place. He told me to take care of Aline. Six months I tried, but by the time I managed my way in—”
A cry reverberated against the walls, and Shaw fell silent.
The first prison cell. The occupant cried out again, visceral sobs that pulled at Lux’s heart, simultaneously urging to run, saving herself, but also to plant her feet, never to rest until she’d set them all free. Neither would occur tonight, so she hurried by the door, trying—and failing—to block the cries that clung to her long after.
The next few they encountered were blessedly silent; either empty or their occupants’ were unconscious or dead. Lux didn’t know how often the surgeon made use of his torture chamber, but with every cell they passed, she fell further into vengeful imaginings of his scalpel in her own hand, doling cut after cut upon him until his sadistic grin grew fixed.
A sudden shriek bounded from the bars of the cell beside her. She spun out of her thoughts, the curved blade settled within her palm.
Shaw’s hand enclosed over her wrist, softening her grip. “Hurry.”
The labyrinth continued. It curled and twisted, enticing them forward with hints of decay and suggestions of filth. They curved around a row of locked doors, whimpering against far-traveled wind, where the loathsome scent grew foulest.
“This is a passage that leads upward and out. For the death-carts.”
She’d no idea, even as it made sense that the bodies be removed as discreetly and efficiently as possible. A deep wooden crate filled the alcove at the opposite side, the fetid scent of death stifling. Shaw looked as if he might vomit, but Lux wondered if it was less the smell and more the thought of his father’s body dumped within, as meaningless to the mayor and his Shield as the previous one.
She reached out her hand, all the while thinking of calling it back. But when her fingers connected with Shaw’s, he entwinedthem like a lifeline and his breathing evened out, the pale hue leaving his face.
He didn’t move for several heartbeats, staring at the crate with shadowed eyes. When he inclined his head to study their clasped hands, she started at the sheen of unshed tears beneath his lowering lashes. Suddenly, her hand in his seemed woefully inadequate.
But she couldn’t do more for him. Not here. Not now.
His hand pulsed once around hers before releasing. “We need to keep following the tunnel. I’ve seen a place where prisoners are experimented on.” He swallowed. “Where my father most likely—”
“I know the place,” she said. “They brought me there.”
“And you escaped their blades?” His eyes followed along the contours of her body, searching for signs of healing injury.
“There weren’t any. Not for me.” Her trailing whisper drew his brows together, but she wouldn’t speak of it. Not here. Not so close. “You’re sure the lifeblood is there?”
“Sure? In all honesty, no. But it’s a good place to start.”
Chapter thirty-seven
The mayor and, subsequently,the Shield, must have been very confident in the ongoing absence of unwanted visitors. Aside from the wailings and occasional scream of those locked beneath the surface, Lux and Shaw didn’t meet anyone.
When the narrow doors rose before them, Lux breathed a sigh of relief that only darkness pushed outward from behind it.
“I’ll go first.” Shaw stepped forward without waiting for a reply, and she cursed her cowardice as she offered no objection.
Her wrists and ankles throbbed in memory of their restraint. She followed at his back as they entered the cold room, and she shivered in the darkness, unable to see a thing. “How will—”
