Sparrow took a deep breath. “I’ll do it. It was just yesterday, after the solstice, around noon. I was working on the retiling project in the west wing of the archives, on the fourth floor, you know the one.” Ebrim nodded. “Her Maj—Herfootman said she needed assistance at once. I… My sister, she, she was called more than a week ago, just like that. Doesn’t remember a thing. I thought I could find out what happened to her.”
“Brave man,” Khoda said. “What happened next?”
“I was taken to the royal catacombs, near the well. The footman gave me a torch and told me to go to the Tomb of Monarchs and wait until I was called back. The hour-bell was ringing when they sent me down, and I-I think it rang again right around when they called for me. The—shewas waiting at the bottom of the stairs, with a man in an Owl robe. They asked if I heard anything, and I said no. Then she said if I told anyone, she’d—” He covered his mouth and shook his head. “The man also said he could make me forget everything, everyone I ever loved, all of it. I swore I wouldn’t tell. They let me go.”
“She had you there for an hour,” Jasimir said. “For… nothing?”
Sparrow gnawed at his bottom lip, then shook his head again. “I lied,” he whispered. “I heard… something. It came and went, and I couldn’t tell where from, and I knew if my sister heard it too, she would have told them, so I lied.”
“What did you hear?” Khoda asked.
Sparrow shuddered. “It sounded like someone weeping. Like… like a soul in torment.”
A cold hush fell over the room, prickles dancing over Fie’s arms. It only broke when she said, soft and slow, “What thefuck?”
Jasimir reached over and gripped the man’s shoulder. “I know what it’s like to feel powerless against her,” he said. “Like everything you hold dear can just be taken from you, if she feels like it. It was incredibly brave to come back. I won’t forget it.”
Sparrow nodded, eyes on the ground.
“Look at me,” Jasimir said, and waited for Sparrow to meet his gaze. “Thank you.” He let go.
“I’ll get you back into Dumosa.” Ebrim took a step toward the door as Sparrow fussed with his sleeves once more. “If you’d like, we can try to get you farther.”
“I just want it all put right,” Sparrow said hoarsely. “The way it was.”
I don’t, Fie thought but didn’t say.I want better.
Once Ebrim and Sparrow were gone, Khoda started pacing. “So. Now we need to figure out how to break into the royal catacombs.” He looked up to Yula. “I don’t suppose you get a lot of cleaning requests down there.”
She shook her head. “They also need to be unlocked by a member of the royal family. They’re the only ones with the keys.”
“Damn.I was hoping we could send Fie in.”
Fie squinted out the window, thinking. She hadn’t yet told Khoda of her plans for tomorrow. “Maybe we still can.”
“I’ll admit, again,” Tavin said, “this was not what I had in mind.”
Fie propped an unlit torch against her shoulder as they passed under the stone arch, its carved phoenix sneering at them from atop its skulls. “I told you, I like dark secrets.”
A fern could flirt better than that, Niemi scolded.
Fie swallowed. She’d dressed practically, with a minimal glamour to turn her linen tunic and leggings into finer weaves with thicker embroidery. There was no chance of dazzling Tavin with a spectacle of a gown today.
He’d gone first, headed down the steps to a set of heavy-looking bronze doors, a ring of keys swinging from his fingers. She leaned closer to the back of his neck and breathed, “And you said you had a lot to show me.”
Tavin dropped the keys with a clatter. “Er,” he croaked. “That’s… fair.”
There, Niemi said.Better. You might land us a prince after all.
Fie didn’t know if the swell of nausea came from that notion, or from the fact that the Well of Grace had to be only a few dozen paces above her. Either way, she ignored the dead girl and tried to fix her head on what the queen might be hiding.
The bronze doors swung open. Tavin tapped the iron torch in his hand. It kindled with a flurry of gold sparks. He reached for Fie’s torch. “May I?”
It had taken Fie nigh a week to teach him to ask before reaching for her. He’d figured it out in under three days for a Peacock girl.
She gave him a tight-lipped smile and held her torch out.
Once it was lit, he led on. The passage continued down in a shallow, broad slope; Fie knew a hall designed for pallbearers when she sawone. It was simple, well-cut masonry, the ceiling fitting in a smooth arch over their heads. If the well above leaked into the ground, she saw no sign; the stone looked mostly dry and free of mold streaks.
