of ants that had traversed its mottled face over the decades. The surface of the wall bloomed in her mind, and she felt every crack and every crevice, every dollop of mortar and every stained stone.
All of this information coursed into Sancia’s thoughts the second she touched the wall. And among this sudden eruption of knowledge was what she had really been hoping for.
Loose stones. Four of them, big ones, just a few feet away from her. And on the other side, some kind of closed, dark space, about four feet wide and tall. She instantly knew where to find it like she’d built the wall herself.
There’s a building on the other side, she thought. An old one. Good.
Sancia took her hand away. To her dismay, the huge scar on the right side of her scalp was starting to hurt.
A bad sign. She’d have to use her talent a lot more than this tonight.
She replaced her glove and crawled over to the loose stones. It looked like there had been a small hatch here once, but it’d been bricked up years ago. She paused and listened—the two guards now seemed to be loudly sniffing the breeze.
“I swear to God, Pietro,” said one, “it was like the devil’s shit!” They began pacing the passageway together.
Sancia gripped the topmost loose stone and carefully, carefully tugged at it.
It gave way, inching out slightly. She looked back at the guards, who were still bickering.
Quickly and quietly, Sancia hauled the heavy stones out and placed them in the mud, one after the other. Then she peered into the musty space.
It was dark within, but she now let in a little light—and she saw many tiny eyes staring at her from the shadows, and piles of tiny turds on the stone floor.
Rats, she thought. Lots of them.
Still, nothing to do about it. Without another thought, she crawled into the tiny, dark space.
The rats panicked and began crawling up the walls, fleeing into gaps in the stones. Several of them scampered over Sancia, and a few tried to bite her—but Sancia was wearing what she called her “thieving rig,” a homemade, hooded, improvised outfit made of thick, gray woolen cloth and old black leather that covered all of her skin and was quite difficult to tear through.
As she got her shoulders through, she shook the rats off or swatted them away—but then a large rat, easily weighing two pounds, rose up on its hind legs and hissed at her threateningly.
Sancia’s fist flashed out and smashed the big rat, crushing its skull against the stone floor. She paused, listening to see if the guards had heard her—and, satisfied that they had not, she hit the big rat again for good measure. Then she finished crawling inside, and carefully reached out and bricked up the hatch behind her.
There, she thought, shaking off another rat and brushing away the turds. That wasn’t so bad.
She looked around. Though it was terribly dark, her eyes were adjusting. It looked like this space had once been a fireplace where the foundry workers cooked their food, long ago. The fireplace had been boarded up, but the chimney was open above her—though she could see now that someone had tried to board up the very top as well.
She examined it. The space within the chimney was quite small. But then, so was Sancia. And she was good at getting into tight places.
With a grunt, Sancia leapt up, wedged herself in the gap, and began climbing up the chimney, inch by inch. She was about halfway up when she heard a clanking sound below.
She froze and looked down. There was a bump, and then a crack, and light spilled into the fireplace below her.
The steel cap of a guard poked into the fireplace. The guard looked down at the abandoned rat’s nest and cried, “Ugh! Seems the rats have built themselves a merry tenement here. That must have been the smell.”
Sancia stared down at the guard. If he but glanced up, he’d spy her instantly.
The guard looked at the big rat she’d killed. She tried to will herself not to sweat so no drops would fall on his helmet.
“Filthy things,” muttered the guard. Then his head withdrew.
Sancia waited, still frozen—she could still hear them talking below. Then, slowly, their voices withdrew.
She let out a sigh. This is a lot of risk to get to one damned carriage.
She finished climbing and came to the top of the chimney. The boards there easily gave way to