can discuss literature later. If you want to help us, then by all means lead on.”
“So impatient,” Spider said. “You haven’t introduced me to your companion.”
Khelséa stepped forward, holstering her pistol and extending her gloved hand in one smooth motion. “Khelséa Shar.” No rank or title, and Isyllt silently blessed her discretion. And from her willingness to share her name with a demon, guessed that it wasn’t her birth name.
“Spider.” He bowed over her hand with an exaggerated marionette grace. “Delighted to meet you.”
He hadn’t been so delighted to meet Ciaran. Maybe Khelséa was more to his taste. Isyllt thanked the saints that he wasn’t to hers.
“Do you know which way they went?”
He studied the branching tunnel, nostrils flaring. Finally he cocked his head toward the far one. “That way, I think.”
Of course it would be the side that made them cross the canal. She glared at the churning black water. Spider caught her expression and laughed. He moved faster than she could follow, a pale blur and a ghostly afterimage behind her eyelids. When she blinked again he stood on the far bank, sweeping out a mocking hand to invite them across.
“Show-off,” Isyllt muttered as she backtracked to the last narrow bridge.
“You do have the most interesting friends,” said Khelséa.
Another winding, branching walk followed. Isyllt had long since lost track of time, but getting out of the sewers before early autumn darkness fell seemed unlikely. Not that it mattered, if the vrykoloi truly didn’t sleep. Although he’d earlier said they did.
She wondered if Spider could read her thoughts, or only knew the curious minds of mages. After a while he slowed till she walked at his shoulder; Khelséa kept watch at the rear.
“The older we grow, the more we sleep,” he said softly. She shouldn’t have been able to hear him over the din, but she could. “The elders nap for months at a time, or longer. But only injury drives the young ones to rest, while they’re safe from the sun. Daylight is… tiring. Painful. Like the worst of summer and winter is to the living.”
He was only trying to bribe her with information, but her curiosity was piqued all the same. “And how old are you?”
His eyes glittered with a sideways glance. “Older than you, little witch. Young enough to remember summer and winter, wind and rain.”
“When you do sleep, do you dream?” She meant it to be clinical, but wistfulness crept into the words.
“Yes.” He said nothing else, and soon drifted ahead again.
Of course they must, Isyllt thought. Nothing freed you from the past. Not even death.
He stopped not long after, letting Isyllt and Khelséa catch up. As they approached, the witchlight revealed rusty iron bars bound with a heavy chain.
Khelséa pulled the cloacae’s skeleton key from her pocket, but it didn’t turn in the lock. “Well,” she said mildly. “This is problematic. I didn’t think to bring a saw.”
Isyllt leaned her head against the cold bars. Nothing even remotely human-sized would fit through them, unless vampires could turn to shadows like the penny bloods suggested. She remembered Tenebris, and wondered how far from the truth those stories really were.
“We could try to swim under….” She didn’t try to keep the disgust from her voice.
Khelséa examined the lock. “It doesn’t look like this has been opened recently. So if your vampires did come this way, how did they get through? Unless they swam.” She didn’t sound any more thrilled with the prospect.
“There are,” Spider said after a pause, “other tunnels down here. Crawlspaces and byways that I doubt are on your maps. I imagine whoever comes this way leaves the lock intact to avoid attention.”
“You imagine?” Isyllt’s eyes narrowed. “Have you known all along where we were going?”
“I suspected it.” He shrugged one shoulder, a disturbing articulation of bones. “You wouldn’t have trusted me if I’d had too much information too soon.”
“I don’t trust you now. But if you make me swim through the sewers again when there’s an easier way, I’ll give a few new scars for your collection.”
He laughed, like dry leaves scraping stone. “There’s always an easier way.” He twined two fingers through the shackle of the lock, another two through the nearest link of chain, and twisted. Link and lock groaned, and the shackle snapped free of the body with a screech. The sound echoed down the tunnel.
“Easier, but not quieter.” Isyllt fought the urge to cover her aching ears. If the vrykoloi were in their den, they’d soon know someone was