It came and went, and I couldn’t tell where from, and I knew if my sister heard it too, she would have told them, so I lied.”
“What did you hear?” Khoda asked.
Sparrow shuddered. “It sounded like someone weeping. Like … like a soul in torment.”
A cold hush fell over the room, prickles dancing over Fie’s arms. It only broke when she said, soft and slow, “What the fuck?”
Jasimir reached over and gripped the man’s shoulder. “I know what it’s like to feel powerless against her,” he said. “Like everything you hold dear can just be taken from you, if she feels like it. It was incredibly brave to come back. I won’t forget it.”
Sparrow nodded, eyes on the ground.
“Look at me,” Jasimir said, and waited for Sparrow to meet his gaze. “Thank you.” He let go.
“I’ll get you back into Dumosa.” Ebrim took a step toward the door as Sparrow fussed with his sleeves once more. “If you’d like, we can try to get you farther.”
“I just want it all put right,” Sparrow said hoarsely. “The way it was.”
I don’t, Fie thought but didn’t say. I want better.
Once Ebrim and Sparrow were gone, Khoda started pacing. “So. Now we need to figure out how to break into the royal catacombs.” He looked up to Yula. “I don’t suppose you get a lot of cleaning requests down there.”
She shook her head. “They also need to be unlocked by a member of the royal family. They’re the only ones with the keys.”
“Damn. I was hoping we could send Fie in.”
Fie squinted out the window, thinking. She hadn’t yet told Khoda of her plans for tomorrow. “Maybe we still can.”
* * *
“I’ll admit, again,” Tavin said, “this was not what I had in mind.”
Fie propped an unlit torch against her shoulder as they passed under the stone arch, its carved phoenix sneering at them from atop its skulls. “I told you, I like dark secrets.”
A fern could flirt better than that, Niemi scolded.
Fie swallowed. She’d dressed practically, with a minimal glamour to turn her linen tunic and leggings into finer weaves with thicker embroidery. There was no chance of dazzling Tavin with a spectacle of a gown today.
He’d gone first, headed down the steps to a set of heavy-looking bronze doors, a ring of keys swinging from his fingers. She leaned closer to the back of his neck and breathed, “And you said you had a lot to show me.”
Tavin dropped the keys with a clatter. “Er,” he croaked. “That’s … fair.”
There, Niemi said. Better. You might land us a prince after all.
Fie didn’t know if the swell of nausea came from that notion, or from the fact that the Well of Grace had to be only a few dozen paces above her. Either way, she ignored the dead girl and tried to fix her head on what the queen might be hiding.
The bronze doors swung open. Tavin tapped the iron torch in his hand. It kindled with a flurry of gold sparks. He reached for Fie’s torch. “May I?”
It had taken Fie nigh a week to teach him to ask before reaching for her. He’d figured it out in under three days for a Peacock girl.
She gave him a tight-lipped smile and held her torch out.
Once it was lit, he led on. The passage continued down in a shallow, broad slope; Fie knew a hall designed for pallbearers when she saw one. It was simple, well-cut masonry, the ceiling fitting in a smooth arch over their heads. If the well above leaked into the ground, she saw no sign; the stone looked mostly dry and free of mold streaks.
She felt it all the same, dragging at her belly. Naming the fear made it easier to face, but easier was not the same as easy. When her torch wobbled, Tavin looked back. Whatever he saw in her face spurred him to hold out a hand.
Fie loathed herself for taking it. She loathed herself more for the way it felt right.
Halfway down, they passed two figures standing in armor bolted to the walls, one on each side of the hall. Torchlight caught on bone, on empty eyes peering through helmets wrought of gold-trimmed bronze.
“There are going to be more of those,” Tavin warned. “They’re former master-generals. They guard the catacombs even after death.”
Fie sucked in a breath as they passed. The thought of Draga standing on duty down here until she crumbled away didn’t sit well.
Then a strange pressure began to push on her