Aeralis (19 page)

I scanned the room for Adam and spotted him leaning against one of the tables, engaged in conversation with a dark-haired woman nursing a pint. They both looked my way as I approached.

“Is everything all right?” Adam asked, subtly shifting his weight toward the door as if he expected a threat to surge inside any moment.

I lifted one shoulder. “Everything is fine.” My voice was strained.

Adam smiled at the woman. “Thank you for your help.” He straightened and took my arm, pulling me with him toward an empty table. He sank onto a stool and nudged the one across from him with his foot. I sat.

“What?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Gabe...” I stopped. I was reluctant to confide in Adam about this, given the current emotional complexities between us, but the words begged to be spoken. A turmoil of emotion swirled inside me, driving me mad.

Adam studied me but didn’t speak. He didn’t give me any indication that he wanted to hear more or that he didn’t.

I sighed, giving in to the desire to tell him about it against my better judgment. “Gabe continues to confide in Claire, and I don’t like it.”

“You don’t trust her?”

“Of course I don’t. Gabe barely trusts her. I think he’s trying to prove something to himself, and he’s toying with Ivy and Jonn’s lives in the process.”

Adam said nothing.

I knew what he was thinking. “I’m not jealous. It isn’t that.”

“Still,” he said. “There are unspoken things between you and Gabe, are there not?”

As there are between you and me
, I thought, and changed the subject. “What about you? Discover anything?”

“A man had been asking around, but he hasn’t been seen in several days. That could mean he’s moved on because he’s had no luck here, or—”

“Or it could mean he’s found the device.” Fear spiked in me. Had we come this far only to lose him again?

“Or,” Adam said calmly, “it could mean he’s in the process of extracting it now.”

“Either way, we need to hurry.”

Cat was waiting outside when we exited the inn.

“I found something,” he reported, excitement leaking into his words. “Down the street, there’s a flight of stairs that leads to a drain. It’s quite large, and a ladder drops down inside. It might lead to the tunnels you’re seeking.”

We followed him without a word. Gabe and I avoided each other’s gazes, but I hardly thought about that. My body was on fire with hope and fear and anxiety. Was this it?

We reached the steps Cat had spoken of. Rainwater roared below us, spilling into the drain. The top of the ladder poked out of one side of the hole, slick with algae and covered in rust.

“Down there?” Gabe asked over the sound of the water. His face wrinkled with skepticism.

“I’ll go,” I said.

“I’ll go with you,” Adam said.

Spray splattered my face as I descended the steps, taking care not to slip on the wet stones. Adam followed me, so close that I could feel the heat of him on my back. We reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped. Slick, algae-coated stone formed a canyon that ended in the drain. The hole guzzled the rainwater like a hungry maw, and the stench of sewage filled the air.

Adam lifted the lantern and peered down the hole. He motioned for me to follow. The lantern winked in his hand like a star.

“Will it be extinguished in the mist?” I shouted over the roar.

He considered this, probing the places where the glass met the iron, then he removed his cloak and wrapped it around the lantern. Gabe and Cat stirred above us, silent as they peered down into the sudden darkness.

Adam grabbed the edge of the ladder with one hand and began to descend. His knuckles whitened around the cuff of stone that rimmed the top of the drain, and his body and then his head were swallowed by the darkness. Another moment and he was gone completely.

I looked at Gabe and Cat for reassurance, but they had vanished. My blood sang a song of fear in my veins as I drew in a lungful of the putrid air and stuck my foot in the blackness of the drain.

My foot found the first rung of the ladder, and I lowered myself onto it. Cool air swirled around my legs, the spray of the water soaking my coat and the tendrils of my hair that had escaped from my bun. I took another step down, and another. The circle of black sky above me began to shrink, and with each step I took, my stomach squeezed tighter. I took deep breaths and kept moving. I’d faced more frightening things before, but I hated the dark. Anything could attack, and I’d have no way to know what I was fighting. My skin prickled in anticipation of steel sinking into my skin with every step down the ladder.

My feet finally touched stone, and I relinquished my hold on the metal rung above me. A chaotic darkness swirled around me, made of mist and a roaring cacophony of falling water.

“Adam?” My whisper mingled with the sound of the water and was swept away.

Light flooded the tunnel as Adam released the lantern from the cage of his coat. Fog clouded the glass. Droplets of water glimmered on his cheeks and chin, and his hair clung to his forehead. His chest rose and fell as he met my eyes. I looked past him, examining the area. Walls of thick stone surrounded us above and on either side. A narrow ledge ran alongside the water, disappearing in the darkness in either direction.

“Which way do we go?”

“Pick a direction,” he answered. “Your guess is as accurate as mine.”

I chose left.

We had to step along the ledge one at a time. The sound of falling water faded as we went deeper and deeper into the tunnel, replaced by sounds of dripping and suspicious splashes in the water below us. Something skittered across my feet, and I bit my lip to hold back a startled cry. The lantern dipped and flickered, and our shadows danced in its light.

Faintly, another light appeared ahead. I grabbed Adam’s arm. He nodded; he’d seen it, too. We advanced slowly. The ledge widened into a path of stone. The ceiling closed in as we turned a corner, almost low enough to touch.

A torch lay on the ground ahead of us, burning brightly. Signs of excavation surrounded it—piles of dirt, displaced stones, a shovel. My heart stuttered and my breath caught. Borde?

That was when I heard the sound of footsteps echoing through the tunnel.

Too many footsteps to be one man.

Adam pulled me back. “Soldiers,” he hissed.

We ran. Shouts echoed behind us, and I didn’t look back until we’d reached the ladder. Light filled the tunnels, and shadows leaped against the walls. The scrape and clatter of stones filled the air, punctuated by the bark of commands. The voices rang with triumph.

They were taking it. Whatever it had been, they were taking it. My eyes burned, although they were dry of tears. I forced myself to climb the ladder back to the surface, and Adam was right behind me. The spray from the water pouring down the drain drenched my face and coat, but I didn’t pause. I reached the top and inhaled the scent of damp sewage and fresh air.

“Lia!” Gabe’s low cry caught my attention. He and Cat appeared out of the darkness as Adam and I struggled out of the hole. “Did you—?” He stopped, scanning my empty hands. “You didn’t find it?”

“Worse,” I said. “Soldiers got there first.”

“Soldiers?” Cat repeated. “In the tunnels?”

“Yes.” I held Gabe’s gaze. Heat simmered in my chest, a fury building and threatening to choke me. “Soldiers.”

We retreated to the shadow of a shop. Silver light glittered on wet cobblestones and shone on the water pouring into the tunnel.

“I should go back,” Adam said softly. “Maybe Borde returned to the site to see if the soldiers took the device. He might be there now.”

It was a far-fetched hope, but I nodded, barely conscious of his words over the roaring in my ears. Dimly, I heard Cat say something about scouting the street for any sign of them. I was still staring at Gabe. When they’d both left us, the words hit my tongue, and they tasty bitter.

“You know who did this.”

Gabe flinched. “We can’t be sure—”

“Gabe,” I snapped. “You cannot continue to endanger us all by harboring her, not if she’s betraying us.”

He turned away, his body sharp edges of anger and denial where the moonlight touched the line of his shoulders, the cut of his cheekbones, the slash of his mouth. “Will you tell anyone?” His voice was just a rasp in the silence.

The raw agony in his tone deflated me a little. “Not if you tell her to leave.”

“I...I will. I promise.”

“Do it, and do it immediately.”

Footsteps rang on the street behind us. We both straightened, dropping the topic as Cat joined us. “No sign of them,” he said. “Where’s Adam?”

“He hasn’t returned yet.”

Cat’s gaze darted between us. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Gabe said.

“I don’t want to discuss it,” I said at the same time.

Cat’s eyebrows lifted, but he wisely left the matter alone.

A clink met my ears. Adam’s head emerged from the drain. He hauled himself up and wiped his forehead with his wrist. I went to meet him, and the defeat in his eyes shook me to my core.

“Well?” I whispered, still daring to hope.

“If it was there,” he said, “they took it. I didn’t find Borde.”

The hope in my chest shattered, slicing my insides like broken glass, but I wasn’t ready to quit yet.

“We should make one sweep of the area before we leave,” I said. “If Borde fled, he probably didn’t go far. He must be as frantic as we are to recover this device.”

Gabe looked at me. I avoided his eyes. “You two should go,” I said. “Gabe might be recognized come daybreak.”

He nodded and joined Cat, and they slipped up the street and out of sight.

Adam observed me without comment, and I silently thanked him for being the type who valued silence over pestering questions. The issue with Gabe was too raw to revisit. I needed time to process my anger at what had happened, but I couldn’t contemplate that now. We needed to look for Borde; perhaps we could still find him.

We checked the alleys and corners, looking in any place that someone might seek refuge during the wee hours between dawn and day. A few ragged beggars peered at us, curiosity plain in their eyes, but there was no sign of the white-haired scientist we sought. The horizon turned pale with the coming morning, and a light rain began to fall. The hiss of it surrounded us in a gray cocoon, sealing us inside our own bubble of sorrow.

Adam turned a restless circle in the street. “He must have decided to put distance between himself and the soldiers rather than stay to observe.”

Exhaustion pulled at my limbs. I wanted to sink down onto the street and go to sleep, but we couldn’t stop looking.

“We have to find him. He has to be here.”

“Lia—”

“No,” I snapped. “We can’t give up.”

Adam touched my arm. “I know,” he said. “But we’re both spent. Let’s get something to eat and rest for a short while. After, we can continue.”

I let him lead me toward a bakery. I recognized it. I’d gotten directions to the Plaza of Horses there after I’d informed Adam that I was leaving the Thorns. It felt like a lifetime ago.

The bell above the door jingled as we stepped inside, and the warm scent of baking goods enveloped us. Gaslights burned brightly on the green paneled walls, dispelling the lingering darkness of the rainy morning. The baker was nowhere to be seen.

Adam rang the bell for service while I drifted to the window to stare at the street. Rain pattered gently at the window. A few pedestrians scurried past, their coats pulled snug about their necks and their hats shoved down over their faces.

My panic was beginning to settle like dust along my bones, thickening into a feeling more akin to weary defeat. In my mind’s eye, I saw my brother, thin and brittle beneath the quilts, his cheeks porcelain, and his fingers restless as he slept the sleep of the near-dead. I saw Ivy toppling over, succumbing to the Sickness and the coma that set in swiftly after infection. I bit my lip so hard that I tasted blood. My nails dug into my palms.

The door opened and closed, the bell jingled, and I turned reflexively to glance at the newcomer. A pair of bright eyes met mine from beneath the brim of a hat. A wrinkled mouth fell opened in astonishment. All the air sucked from my lungs in one gasp.

Borde
.

TWENTY

I COULDN’T SPEAK, couldn’t draw breath. The air chilled, sound ceased, and the room darkened as I stared into the eyes of the man I’d been seeking for so long.

He was thinner than I remembered. His hair fell in shaggy waves to his shoulders, and new wrinkles enfolded his eyes and the corners of his mouth. Thick new scars crossed his forehead and cheeks in pale, white lines. He wore a tattered coat and a pair of patched trousers. A timepiece dangled from his vest, the glass cracked.

“Lia Weaver,” he said as he looked at me. Astonishment leaked into every syllable. “You never cease to amaze me. How...?”

“It’s a long story.” I didn’t know where to begin. The weight of everything that must be said pressed against me. I sorted my words, choosing them with care. “I’ve been looking for you. We must talk at once.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Adam turn his head to look at us.

Borde darted a glance around the shop. “Not here. It isn’t safe.”

Adam left the counter and joined me.

“Who is he?” Borde demanded, taking a step back.

“A friend,” I said. I reached out one hand and touched his wrist. “Come, I have a safe place where we can talk”—I lowered my voice—“about the device.”

Borde licked his lips. “How do you know about that?”

“I’ll explain as soon as I can. Please.”

I could see the struggle in his eyes. He trusted me, but he was wary all the same. “All right,” he said.

We left the bakery and traveled quickly and without speaking through the streets. People began to crowd the sidewalks and alleyways, appearing from the early morning mist like ghosts. Sweat dripped between my shoulder blades as we passed a pair of soldiers on the corner, but their gazes passed over us as if we were invisible.