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her footing on the weeping rock. After a while the passage levelled, and then, abruptly, it opened into a cavernous space.

It was a storeroom of sorts, stuffed with piles of mouldering detritus: furniture, bedsteads, bolts of cloth, crates and trunks full of random objects, stone trenchers and sinks, broken pottery, baskets of bottles, and more bottles containing everything from beads to teeth.

“Look for tools,” Rachel said to Mr. Nettle, “and weapons.”

“Quickly,” Carnival growled.

They set to work rummaging through all the rubbish, most of it smashed up or useless. Years of offerings, Rachel assumed, from the Avulsior’s ceremonies way above; payment for the privilege of watching pilgrims redeemed. There were examples of workmanship from every quarter of Deepgate: once-fine garments, wrought iron, ceramics, children’s toys, wooden sculptures, all heaped here into piles and left to rot.

Mr. Nettle found the poppywood chest.

Rachel could barely have lifted the heavy crossbow, let alone used it effectively, but the scrounger hefted it easily in one massive arm and grinned at her.

“Smith’s,” he explained.

“Belonged to a friend of yours?” she asked.

His grin faded. “Aye.”

There were three bolts with the weapon: a hunting crescent, a burner, and a poisonsong wrapped in oil cloth—though no markings to indicate which type of poison.

“Craw plague,” Mr. Nettle said.

She noted the way he watched Carnival from the corner of his eye as he spoke. Rachel gave him the hunting tip and carefully fastened the others to her belt. Chances were, the plague-bolt was dry—although still able to pierce—but the burner was worth more than any treasure.

“Should be hammers too,” Mr. Nettle said, peering into the chest. “Smith had hammers in here.”

“They’ve been taken. I suppose hammers are worth more to people living underground than a hulking great weapon like that.”

After all, what were they going to shoot at down here?

Rachel could have spent hours sifting through the storeroom for further weapons, but a look at Carnival’s expression drove her to urgency. After she’d fitted a fresh cord to Nettle’s crossbow, wound the windlass, and loaded the hunting tip for him, they set off again.

Tunnels branched and branched again until it seemed like they were negotiating the hollow roots of a tree. Carnival kept always to the widest passages, her wingtips scratching the rock on either side. It grew warmer, and gradually lighter, until Rachel spied fires burning in a chamber ahead.

“Turn off the lantern,” Carnival hissed. “Don’t you smell it?”

Rachel sniffed. Someone was cooking meat.

She realized the same smell had been there for some time. And then she realized she was salivating. Bile rose in her stomach at the thought. She glanced at Mr. Nettle. Had he noticed too? Did he know what the smell meant or had his mind blocked out such a possibility?

What will the truth do to him?

Carnival went striding ahead.

“Wait,” Rachel whispered.

Carnival ignored her, and the chain between them grew taut. Cursing, the assassin took off after her.

Liquids gurgled and frothed within huge, steaming cauldrons set around the edges of the cavern. The rock walls were seeping, and blood-coloured with the heat and light from coals burning under massive grates. A heavy butcher’s block occupied most of the available space between the cauldrons, its wooden surface deeply stained and gouged. Mercifully, there was no sign of any meat.

Carnival stood peering into one of the cauldrons. “Scrounger,” she said, squinting against the light.

“Don’t.” Rachel grabbed her arm.

The angel grunted.

Mr. Nettle joined them. He scowled at the nearby cauldrons, but did not appear interested in their contents.

He can’t face the truth. His mind isn’t capable of accepting it. Or maybe he’s just too damn stubborn. She wondered how long he’d already been down here, and what he’d eaten to stay alive.

Two stout doors led out of the opposite end of the cavern. One of them would doubtless be the cold room. Rachel studied the floor and saw grooves in the dirt suggesting that a number of heavy objects had been dragged through the smaller of the two doors.

Carnival approached this same door.

“Wait!”

But just as Rachel reached out to stop her, the larger door opened. And something clambered through.

The thing had to stoop low to squeeze its wings through the doorframe, moving its fleshless limbs in a series of crooked jerks. When it saw them, it dropped the bone it had been gnawing, straightened its misshapen body somewhat, and narrowed sulphurous yellow eyes. One side of its mouth drooped open to reveal a single pointed tooth. Between its white lips, a sliver of a tongue lolled like a bloodworm. Even