“What are our options?” asked Root, her head spinning.
“Limited,” said the king.
“I’m so sorry,” said Vit, shaking their head. “I really thought I had it. I touched it—started to lift it. I moved so fast…”
“It’s all right,” said Azriah. “You did everything you could. It could’ve been any of us.”
Vit didn’t look convinced.
Azriah turned to the king. “So, the skip snare—we don’t know where it led, but you have to have some guesses. Another vault? David’s chambers?”
“We still have the tunnels,” said Root, nodding. “We could get to David’s room—or anywhere else—undetected, right? It’s not what we planned, and the timing… well, it’s not like we’re going to kill time anyway. We can still salvage this.”
The king hummed in thought. “Either is possible. Yes, that’s the issue. Either is possible. Perhaps they’ve installed a vault beneath, oh, the barracks—er, the villa—or beneath the cathedral. Or somewhere unexpected elsewhere in the city. Perhaps there’s a room somewhere in the building, guarded and secure.”
“But you don’t know where?”
“Or perhaps it’s been teleported to another city. Somewhere else where the Children have a notable presence and the manpower to hold a secure vault. Somewhere the halo can wait in patient liminality until someone comes to collect it or until the word is received to teleport it back by some other means. Perhaps twenty miles from here, or a hundred. Maybe they’ve sent it all the way to Setoterra.” He sighed. “No, this is just the problem with skip snares—the benefit, if you’re the one who owns it, who lays the trap. They can go anywhere, and even a shortlist of guesses can span such a monumental stretch of geography you’d best hope you’ve got a portaller on your side. Or someone quite fast.”
Vit only seemed to be deflating with every word the king hammered into them. They didn’t raise their eyes.
“So not even one helpful guess, then?” said Root.
The king bobbed his carved face in a gesture reminiscent of a shoulderless shrug. “I know that if it were me, I’d want it as far from harm’s way as I could manage while still keeping it under my thumb. Certainly not a neighboring vault or a room upstairs that, in the case of some monstrous beast or an army’s siege, could have already fallen to rubble. A backup is just that—a backup. A last resort. Somewhere even more secure.”
“More secure?” said Beel. “How in the worlds could anyone manage that?”
“How many guards did you count?” asked Root.
“Let me think…”
“Take that number and add one. Or two.”
“Hm. Oh dear.”
“So what you’re saying is we’re fucked?” she asked, turning back to the king.
He “shrugged” again. Vit grimaced.
“We could at least look, no?” suggested Azriah.
“We’ve passed the point of no return,” said the king. “The palace is under lockdown; the guards are all on alert. They know we’re here, just not where, and not who, precisely, we are. Slinking around—”
“Is extremely dangerous,” said Beel. “As if it wasn’t already.”
The king nodded. “Once they’ve exhausted the culprits inside the palace—which will take some time, but not forever—they’ll cast a wider net. The city and its corridors will grind to a halt as the military takes to the streets.”
“So…” started Root. She joined Vit in studying the floor. It was impressively dusty, even by hundreds-of-years-old hidden passage beneath the floor standards.
One spark and the whole corridor would light up like a fuse, the whole maze burning like veins of fire throughout the palace.
“It’s a shame. A real shame. But what seems wise in this moment is to escape—away from watchful eyes, regroup, and try again another day. Unfortunately, you humans have to be quite mindful of your mortal bodies. One stab and that might be it for you, you know. You’re harder to plan around than spirits, where we can afford to be a little more reckless and hope it pans out. Alas.”
“What do you guys think?” asked Root. She looked back and forth from Vit to Azriah. She didn’t bother looking at Beel; she always knew what to expect of his expression in situations like this. She didn’t want to believe that what the king said was true—about getting stabbed, certainly, but about the hopelessness cultivated by the sheer immensity of the only alternative they had in that moment.
Azriah rolled it back and forth for a minute, then gave the tiniest shrug. “I think he’s right. We have no leads here. The smart thing to do isn’t to run all around in desperation. It’ll make us stupid, and we can’t afford that with the number of guards above our heads here. We’d just keep going—one more room, one more spot—until we get ourselves caught. We can always come back. They’ll collect the halo and bring it back here.”
“And up the security, probably,” said Root.
“So you want to play the long shot?”
She didn’t—not really. She wanted this to have gone according to plan. She wanted to step back into a moment where things had been moving smoothly for them—when they’d been outsmarting David and the palace staff at every turn, playing a game and winning. She didn’t want to redouble their efforts—not here, not now. Not this exhausted already.
“No,” she answered. “No, I guess the king’s right. Fuck.”
“Then we should go,” said Azriah. He rummaged through his things, then ditched his palace guard uniform in favor of his own clothes. He hefted up his pack and Orne Tyn, took the flute—the longest wrapped bundle—and the Gauntlets of Endkiu that Vit had grabbed, and passed around everyone else’s belongings. He handed Root the bundled amulet and stuffed the mirror into Beel’s small pack. He put a hand firmly on Vit’s slumped shoulder. “You did your best. Come on.”
They all turned to look at the king’s brick in Vit’s hand.
“You’re up,” said Root.
“Right. Follow me, then. Er, I mean. Go left. And do not step on that darker stone there.”
They took off through the tunnels.
Saly stood in the middle of the crowd as the guards waved up the people ahead of him to be searched. It was a good, orderly process. The only unorderly bits were the people huddling at the side or whirling around at the slightest sound, eyes wide, fearful of everyone who took the slightest step towards them.
The Grand Priest had lied to them all, right through his teeth. Why? Wouldn’t it be a great help to have more eyes on the lookout? And wasn’t honesty a tenet of the church’s belief? Saly hadn’t been to a service in close to a year, but he still knew a good deal from his schooling growing up and all the services his parents had dragged him along to in his youth.
It didn’t sit well with Saly. He told his boys about the value of honesty, too. If the Grand Priest lied like that about something like this—about dangerous outsiders—what else was he willing to lie about?
Crisis of faith aside, Saly was getting a bit worried. The others’ voices had stopped coming through the whisper stone, and he didn’t know why. Was something wrong? Had something happened? He’d been asking if they could hear him every few minutes, but had received no answer. At least, none from the four down below.
“Hey all. I’m still not receiving any prompt responses from our other team members. Best, B. S., Senior Marketing, Strategy, and Operations Coordinating Analyst.”
“Does it work through, you know, um, walls and stuff?” asked Anjeanette.
“We had no interference when some of us were upstairs and some down here,” said Saly. “And we could hear Beel no problem when he was a few miles away.”
“Hey, sorry.” Root’s voice. Saly almost sighed in relief. “We’re making our way out now. See you back at the basement.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Uh, yeah. We’ll talk more soon.”
“Right. Well, we’re all about to go quiet up here.” Saly looked ahead. He had only a few minutes before his turn for a search; Anjeanette and Brian had less. “We’ll be discarding the whisper stones. So…” They couldn’t afford to get caught with them—not like the other four. A group of friends with whisper stones was one thing, but add in an assortment of strangers, and suddenly you had a conspiracy on your hands. At least, that was what Brock told them: do away with the stone before you’re searched.
“Yeah,” said Root. “No worries. Good luck up there.”
“Same to you.” Anjeanette and Brian echoed the sentiment, and then Saly plucked the stone from his ear. One good stomp under his heel reduced it to bits.
He looked ahead nervously again. Don’t worry, he reminded himself. I’ve got nothing to hide. I’m here for a night of charity and searching for new clients in need of an accountant. And financial planner. Of course.
Speaking of… His eyes wandered to the golden urn out in the courtyard. Someone had stuck an umbrella in the mouth to keep the contents dry.
Perhaps there was some sense in buying his way up a few tiers—you know, just in case everything the church peddled about life after death was true after all, and, well, he’d certainly done no favors for the weight of his soul this evening so far. It could be a good investment. And he hadn’t spent a single cent all day, minus that self-cooling neck pillow he’d seen on his way home after selling the raincoats. And he’d be coming into a whole lot of money shortly…
Movement caught his eye—someone entering the room. No one entered the room now, so this was particularly noteworthy.
It was Elijah, the head of security. He skirted around the room’s perimeter, another guard at his side. They moved strangely, like…
Elijah slowed, tugged something, then kept moving. Yes, like they were dragging something. Someone.
Curiosity got the better of him. Saly slipped out of the crowd and followed the pair.
Elijah and the guard went to a side hallway, the same where they’d held council earlier. David and Leslie were still there alongside David’s chiefest guards and palace staff. Saly stayed behind a column, pretending to be fixated on something else and keeping out of sight.
“We’ve got it,” said Elijah as he strode up. He thrust his arm forward.
A small pink creature hung from his iron grip, feet barely brushing the floor. Vibrant and impish, she looked like a toddler dunked in nausea medicine and grinning from ear to ear.
“You said it was some kind of wildlife,” said Leslie.
“Well, none of my guards got a proper look at it. It’s very fast.”
“Yes, but it’s got a backpack.”
One of David’s aides turned to Leslie. “Sometimes wild beasts get tangled up in our garbage, I’ve heard.”
“It’s wearing it.”
“One might say a turtle is sort of wearing an old—”
“Shut up.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“Search it,” said David.
“It’s not wearing any clothes, Your Holiness, so we’d likely be able to see if it—”
“The backpack.”
Elijah ripped the backpack from the creature with a roughness that didn’t seem warranted. Then again, most guards were all but allergic to the word “warrant.” He tipped the bag upside down and shook it.
Crrreng! Treng-g-g! Something metal crashed to the floor. Saly’s eyes widened.
“How did this thing get ahold of it?” asked David as he scooped up the crown. It was in terrible shape—bent and dented with several jewels missing. He turned away, hunching over it as he inspected it out of view.
Elijah scratched his dark curls with his free hand. “That… is very strange. Sir, I’m not sure—”
“Question it!” he hissed.
“Ohhh,” said the spirit. She grimaced. Then she bit down hard. There was a crack. Her face soured; her eyes drifted out of focus. “Yucky,” she muttered. And then her body imploded, a whoosh of air and a putrid stench. Goo spattered the floor and quickly melted away.
“Damn it, damn it!” said David.
Saly stared at the spot vacated by the spirit in bewilderment. What was this? Who was that spirit? And if she had the crown…
What was going on?
He looked back to where he’d crushed his whisper stone on the floor. Well, it was much too late now to ask for an answer.
“Should we call off the search?” asked one of the guards.
“No! Are you stupid? Look at this!” David pointed to the broken crown, to the spot at the center of the brow where the largest of the gems was missing.
“We can have another fitted,” said a staffer.
“You don’t understand, you don’t understand,” hissed David. “No one leaves. No one goes anywhere until the jewel is found.”
The king called directions. “Right. Another right. Step over that tile. There’s a tripwire there, careful—careful!”
They descended through the tunnels, each one different. They shimmied through narrow strips between worn wooden beams, crawled through a metal duct, descended a chute that was little more than a dirt hole, and walked upright and comfortably through a long-boarded hall with a threadbare carpet and menacing stone statues all around. It looked like something the king had used to test a new decor style but ultimately abandoned in favor of something that would be less terrifying to walk through at night on the way to the bathroom.
“Pry out that fourth brick. Lever behind it. Pull it.” Vit did, and a new, secreter tunnel opened before them. They filed in.
And speaking of bathrooms, they’d traversed what Root could only describe—by appearance and smell—as a stretch of sewer. Each segment deposited them into something new and architecturally unique in all ways except for its love of traps.
“Don’t step there. Or there. Or there. Down these stairs—don’t touch the railing, it’s fake. Triggers the walls to smash together—pretty clever, eh? Heh. Oh, and jump the last step!”
Root felt like she was playing some horrible game of hopscotch where the winner got to live and all the losers got skewered on rusty pikes.
The king was quiet a moment as they traversed a straight section of tunnel. “The others,” he began. “They’ve removed their whisper stones?”
“Yes,” confirmed Azriah. “As instructed. They’ll be searched shortly. And they won’t get tied to us.”
“Good, good. Ah, take this right—in here,” said the king. “Step over that long tile.” Vit led the way through a doorway. A small room lay beyond filled with shelves and metal barrels.
“Where now?” asked Azriah, looking around.
“Everyone through? Wouldn’t want to get separated. Great. Now hit the long tile.”
Vit stepped on it. There was a loud clunking, and then a stone slab swung out, closing off the door.
“All right. Then?” The four of them looked around. It was tight—not much larger than a janitorial closet, T-shaped with a ceiling just high enough for Vit to stand. There was no new exit—no exit at all, except the one barred.
The king cleared his throat. “Then,” he said, “it’s time for the five of us to chat. Please, make yourselves comfortable.”
Pippa emerged from the shallows of Yg Balta. Head, shoulders… what was the rest of that song?
Toes! She started to run—
—And fell face-first into the thick goop of the lake. She pushed herself back up and wiped away the muck.
Oh well. She grinned to herself. Yippee! She’d done such a great job!