features.
Igraine Vernadoe, priestess of the Shrouded God. Widdershins realized it must have been she who'd been praying earlier.
“Didn't know you cared,” Shins managed with the faintest smile.
“I could still be talked out of it,” Igraine warned as she dropped through the trapdoor.
Renard followed, and the next moments were sheer torment as several hands clasped Widdershins's body and—gently as they could, which under the circumstances wasn't very—lowered her down. Renard took one of her arms again, Igraine the other, and they proceeded down the cramped, dust-choked, web-bedecked passageway at what could, at best, be described as an impatient shuffle.
“Others not…” Shins gagged at the sudden inhalation of dust, sneezed hard, and spent the next minute or so waiting for the world to stop spinning beneath the onrush of pain from her injuries. “Not coming with us?” she finally croaked out.
“I still have a few people loyal to me left in the Guild,” Renard said, drawing an unexplained glare from the priestess. “That's how I knew you were there, dear lady; they dispatched a runner to me the instant you arrived. If all went as planned, in the chaos of the incursion, nobody should be able to identify them as having assisted the ‘invaders.’ They should have been able to reseal the trap, too, so that the bitch and her people can't follow us.”
“And,” Igraine added as they passed one of the old wooden support struts, “if they do appear to have found the tunnel, we have other safeguards in place.”
Following her gaze, Shins noted a parcel of some sort tied to the beam. A parcel with a fuse protruding from it.
“Notice there are no torches or lanterns?” Renard asked. “Very sensitive fuses. Bring a flame anywhere near them, and…loudness ensues.”
Shins blinked, felt Olgun doing…whatever his equivalent of blinking was. “But I can see.”
“Luminescent fungus. Deliberately cultivated long ago. Of course, anyone who finds the tunnel but doesn't know about that is going to assume they require a torch…”
“Got it. Thereby loudness.”
“Precisely.”
Shuffle. Shuffle. Step.
This is actually starting to hurt a little less. “Thank you.” Heartfelt but silent, audible to no mortal listener. A warm glow, hesitant but growing stronger, in response.
Stumble.
But only a little less.
Shuffle. Shuffle.
And only then did her mind begin finally to catch up with the events of the last few minutes.
Wait one frog-hopping minute! “I have people still loyal to me…”? Not us. Me.
“How do you know Lisette knows about the escape tunnel in the Shrouded Lord's office?”
“Renard…” the priestess warned.
“Oh, what difference does it make now, Igraine?” he grumbled. “I know because I used it to get away from her the first time. And it was a near thing, believe you me.”
Shins could only shake her head, which—under the circumstances—didn't accomplish much save to drag her hair through the wet blood across her back, and then brush the tips across the pair helping her. “Renard Lambert. The Shrouded Lord. I have to confess, I didn't see that coming.”
“Anonymity is the whole point,” Igraine groused. “Or it's supposed to be.”
“Does it really matter anymore? I'm not in charge. There is no more Shrouded Lord. And even if there ever is again, we both know it won't be me, not after Lisette took over on my watch. No way the priests would allow it.”
Shins heard a low mutter from the woman to her left, but it certainly didn't sound like a denial.
“I wasn't a good fit, anyway,” he admitted to Widdershins, shifting her weight on his shoulders a bit. “I'm not ruthless enough. Never have been. The Finders might have been a little nicer under me, but they also weren't nearly as profitable. Even if Bitch Suvagne hadn't returned and yanked the rug out from under all of us, I probably only had a couple of years left before I was replaced. A process, I should hasten to point out, that I might or might not have survived.
“No, when all this is over, someone else gets to take up the burden. I'm done with it.”
“Someone obviously thought you were right for the position,” Shins said after another moment.
“How do you mean?”
“A position that powerful, where being imposing is basically your job…?”
“Yes?”
“Well, they clearly waived the height requirement for your sake!”
Igraine's normally tight expression shattered in a burst of laughter, however reluctantly. Olgun joined her, though only Shins knew, and after a prolonged gawp, so did Renard himself.
When he'd calmed again, he squeezed Widdershins's shoulder, as lightly as he could manage. “You've been missed, my dear. And I think Igraine and