Rook (33 page)

The tunnel was in confusion, people everywhere, propping each other up, some carrying one another, all unsure of the way, all wanting out. Sophia pushed her way through the melee, her shouts ineffectual. Then there was a clang of metal up ahead, someone hitting two swords together rhythmically, calling the prisoners to the upper tunnel and the exit. The throng surrounding Sophia turned as one to the sound and gradually began a steady pace, the stronger moving ahead of the weak, an avalanche of humanity sliding sideways and up through the muck and dark of the rough tunnel.

If the gendarmes came back, if even one of them saw something they shouldn’t, these people would have nothing but their numbers to defend themselves. But surely, Sophia thought, nothing could have been worse than what they were facing the moon before. She held up her lantern, steadying the arm of a woman stumbling next to her. The woman looked up once, glassy-eyed, but any curiosity Sophia saw there was quickly eaten by the panic to get out.

A gendarme stood at the highest bend of the tunnel, where there was a crossroads of sorts, and this caused a palpitation of fear through the prisoners. But when it was obvious that this gendarme was also holding a light, waving them on and up, calling that there were landovers arriving to take them out of the Sunken City, they moved on again. He must be one of her twins, Sophia thought; an ally she’d never even seen before tonight. The clanging was still going on somewhere beyond him.

She broke away from the stumbling herd into a side-branching tunnel before the gendarme spotted her. This passage went down again, ending in a locked metal door. Sophia brought out the key Gerard had given her, turned the lock, and started down a long, winding set of stone stairs. LeBlanc’s special cells, for special prisoners. That’s what the twins had written.

Cartier would be out there somewhere, helping the twins direct the prisoners to the temporary safety of the warehouse across the prison yard. The Lower City was emptying for La Toussaint. With no executions soon, he should be able to get the prisoners safely loaded into the landovers Allemande was so thoughtfully providing for their trip to the Upper City and out the gates. As long as Spear got out of the Hasard flat quick enough, delivered the forged passes to the gates, as long as she could get everyone out before René or LeBlanc realized the Tombs were completely empty of gendarmes …

She stopped on the stairs, stomach twisting as she looked at LeBlanc’s signet ring, now filthy but still on her index finger. René knew about the passes, and he’d made sure the ring came into her hands. Or had he made sure she had the ring to fully gain her trust, and not told LeBlanc he was doing so? Such a double cross was not unthinkable. And then she felt another hard wrench in her middle. René was providing the ships. That meant there wouldn’t be any ships.

The prisoners would just have to scatter; it was all she could do. At least she would have gotten them to the coast. She could only hope that René would not want to admit he’d helped her forge passes, and that Spear had gotten out of the Hasard flat with his life.

She doubled her pace down the stairs, boots making quick, tapping echoes against the shadowy walls, like her heart, like the ticking of the firelighter she’d left behind, a machine that felt nothing, knew nothing but the job at hand. And then the steps ended in an open space of rough brown rock. The dim light of her lantern showed five stone carved arches, all in random directions, heavy wooden doors with locks fitted into the openings. What this place had been Before Sophia couldn’t imagine; there were faint traces of paint in the deep crevices of the walls. But if these cells had numbers, she could find no trace of them.

“Tom? Tom Bellamy?” she called. It was silent under the Sunken City. She took Gerard’s keys and put one to a lock, trying each until she found a fit and flung the door open. Empty, except for the dirt. She tried keys in the second door, turned the lock when she chose the right one, and there was a crumpled mess of thin arms and legs and hair that might be blond.

“Jennifer,” she whispered. The girl didn’t move.

Sophia came inside with the light, and held it up. Low, rough ceiling, a floor thick with dirt and rubbish, and, oddly, a small hearth. Special cells, the twins had said. She guessed those hearths were not put there for comfort. Jennifer lifted her head, squinting her eyes against the light.

“Jen,” she said again, coming close. “It’s Sophia.” Jennifer raised a dirty hand to cover her face. The cuts and burns on her arms were a mass of festering sores, red and running, streaking up beneath the skin and past her elbows. Sophia pulled Jennifer’s hand away and touched her forehead. Dry, and burning hot. And she was shackled by both wrists. Sophia heaped a thousand silent curses on LeBlanc’s head.

“I’ll be back, do you understand?” she said “The door is open. I’m coming straight back.”

Jennifer didn’t answer. Sophia left her where she lay and put a key to the next cell. It was empty. And so was the next. And so was the next.

Sophia stood in a ring of open cell doors, heart beating faster and faster until it was slamming against the wall of her chest. Tom wasn’t there.

René’s back hit the wall of the bedroom hard, and hit it again, but he twisted away before Spear could get a real blow in. The men of the room were lined up against the window wall, while Madame Hasard sat on the opposite side in a chair, her legs crossed, looking both elegant and disgruntled. Spear was surprisingly fast for someone so big, as René had quickly learned, and he had reach. But at his best, René was faster. The room was quiet but for the clang and scrape of blade on blade, both men intent on inflicting bodily damage as soon as possible.

They were so intent that neither noticed Madame Hasard, not until she threw the contents of the water ewer over her son’s head.

Jennifer’s water bucket was empty, and Sophia had a feeling it had been that way a long time. She tossed it down in the dirt, got on her knees with Jennifer behind her, took hold of the girl’s upper arms, and pulled Jennifer up onto her back. Sophia staggered to her feet. She hadn’t realized Jennifer had actually grown taller than her; she had to bend almost double to bear her weight, stay balanced, and prevent the girl’s bare feet from dragging.

There was no way to carry the light, so they started up the winding stairs in the darkness, Sophia’s jaw clenched. It had taken time to pick the locks of Jennifer’s shackles, and the need to hurry, to find Tom, was like fire in her limbs. But she could go only so fast without sending them both tumbling backward down the stairs.

“Jen,” she panted, trying to rouse her once again. “Where is Tom? Can you tell me where Tom is?” She pushed her legs, one after the other, climbing by feel in the dark. For the first time Jennifer made an incoherent noise. “Where is Tom?” Sophia insisted.

“Gone,” said Jennifer.

The slamming in Sophia’s chest stopped and became a squeeze. “Gone where? Keep talking, Jen. It’s Sophia. I need to know where Tom is.”

“They … took him,” Jennifer heaved. It almost sounded like crying. The banging in Sophia’s chest started up again.

“Where, Jennifer? Where?”

But there were no more sounds from her, though she could still feel the girl’s breath faint against her back. Taken. Where had LeBlanc taken him? She had no time for this. No time at all.

Sophia’s legs were shaking, and she was covered in filth and sweat, muscles begging to stop, about to stubbornly do so without her permission. Then she heard the squeak of metallic hinges, the whisper and shuffle of feet. She called down an additional thousand curses on LeBlanc’s head, laid Jennifer gently on the ground near the wall, and pulled out her sword from where she’d thrust it through her belt. She started slowly up the steps, legs still shaky, hugging the wall.

Light blossomed from around the bend, and then two gendarmes came down the stairs, swords out, freezing when their lantern found her. One of them was the gendarme she’d seen earlier. And so was the other.

“Wait,” she said, holding out her sword but also her other hand. She let them watch her slowly draw a black-and-red feather from her vest. The two men relaxed, though they did not put away their swords.

The first one said, “You’re …”

“… a girl!” finished the second.

“And I suppose you’re my twins?” Everyone was stating the obvious. “Help me,” she said, hurrying to Jennifer. She heard swords being sheathed, boots on the stairs behind her. One twin got Jennifer’s legs and the other hooked his elbows under her arms.

Then they paused, three sets of eyes darting up to the ceiling of the passage. A faint clanging of bells was coming down the drains and into the tunnels from the prison yard, through the open metal door above them. Harsh, discordant notes that made their way straight into Sophia’s stomach. Not the middlemoon bells. They were the execution bells. Someone was going to die at the next moon. At highmoon.

She looked to the twins, questioning, but they shook their heads in perfect synchronization. This meant the mob would be arriving soon—surely not all of them had gone to pillage the Upper City—and the execution team. Allemande, LeBlanc, the other ministres. One of them was going to realize the guards were gone. And all the prisoners. She gritted her teeth, held the lantern higher, and they moved on, faster, the clanging of the bells echoing in the Tombs. She had to find Tom.

The execution bells rang through the Upper City, echoing against buildings and stone, overcoming the soft hum of idle chat in the Hasard flat. LeBlanc set his wineglass unsteadily on the table. It was only half full now; Émile wished it had been empty. He saw Enzo coming down the stairs from the gallery.

LeBlanc looked at the pendant he wore, frowned, and suddenly it snapped open to show the clock inside. Renaud, who had been hovering, took a step forward, then thought better of it.

“Middle … moon,” said LeBlanc, seeming surprised at the difficulty of saying the word. “And the bells are ringing, just as they should. And the gate … is opening … and they have their list. The leaders … of the mob know where to go. Renaud gave them addresses. I will have to go. Cannot miss … highmoon …”

“What happens at highmoon, Albert?” Émile asked casually.

“The Razor and Tomas … Bellamy. He dies at the Razor, and she will be coming … for him … too late …”

“I see.” Émile smiled, and laid a coin carefully on the table. “Albert, I have a question I would like to ask the Goddess …”

While LeBlanc struggled to focus on the coin, Émile, very low, so LeBlanc could not hear, whispered, “Enzo, tell René that Tom Bellamy dies at highmoon, and tell Andre that I need him to steal LeBlanc’s pendant.”

The execution bells stopped ringing.