spied a scriving closer to the Mountain: an espringal, or a bundle of rapiers, or some other armament that surely belonged to guards keeping watch. And all of them were Dandolo.
“How in the hell have the Dandolos moved a private army into the enclave?” whispered Sancia as they huddled behind a corner. “Surely the Michiels would have noticed all these goddamn assholes!”
Gregor made a pained face. “Unless…my mother, or Crasedes…made them give the whole place up?”
“He couldn’t do that!” scoffed Orso. Then he saw Sancia’s and Gregor’s faces. “Could he do that?”
“The sound of his voice almost made me tell him where Clef was,” said Sancia. “God knows what it could make a regular person do.”
Gregor peered down the alley at the dark, cracked skin of the Mountain. “They’re in there. I’m sure of it. My mother’s probably had Dandolo scrivers in there all day, trying to get at the same components we’re after. And they’ve set up guards everywhere.”
“So…do we walk away?” asked Orso.
“No!” said Sancia. “If we walk away, then not only do we lose Valeria’s protections, but Crasedes will be one step closer to remaking her into something that could tear reality to pieces like a wasp in a beehive! This is our only chance!”
“Then what do you propose we do?” asked Orso.
Berenice suddenly walked farther out from the corner, staring not at the Mountain but rather at the land around its base.
“What the hell are you doing?” whispered Sancia.
“The secret entrance,” said Berenice quietly.
“What?” said Gregor.
“There’s a secret entrance to the Mountain—isn’t there? We used it last time. Could that still be guarded?”
Sancia thought about it. “I don’t know,” she said. “But it’s worth trying.”
They trotted through a string of parks that had been overtaken with monkeys until finally they came to the entrance to Tribuno Candiano’s personal sculpture garden. Sancia studied the balconies and alleys around them, but found them all empty.
“We’re alone,” she whispered. “They don’t know about it!”
“Then let’s see if it still works,” said Gregor.
They entered the garden. It was a powerfully unsettling experience for Sancia: the last time she’d been here the topiaries had been trimmed, the lawns freshly cut, and the statues had been clean and imposing. Now everything was overgrown, the statues and follies were filthy with dust and mold, and the topiaries had grown so thick Gregor had to hack them away with a scrived rapier.
And, she remembered, the last time she’d been here, she’d had Clef with her.
How long ago that seems now, she thought.
She found the bridge with the hidden entrance below, studied the wall with her scrived sight, and placed a bare hand on it.
“I sure as shit hope this works,” she said quietly.
The scrived door had been very well designed—she could tell right away it was Tribuno Candiano’s work—and it took a lot of effort to fool it into letting them through. But she finally triumphed, and a round, smooth plug of white stone rolled away, revealing a set of stairs on the other side.
Orso let out a relieved sigh. “Thank God!”
“We’re not inside yet,” said Sancia. They ran down the stairs together. “This leads to a weird tunnel that takes us right to the fourth floor. Or at least it did. And hopefully before then I’ll be able to confer with the Mountain.”
“You’re going to talk to it? To the whole building?” asked Gregor.
“Yeah,” said Sancia. “And maybe it can tell us what’s going on.” Though she had to admit, knowing that the lexicons of the Mountain essentially ran on the distorted, violated souls of the dead made the prospect of conferring with it a touch more disturbing than it’d normally have been.
People used to say the Mountain was haunted, she thought. They didn’t know how right they were…
They passed through the tunnel, which was now so dark they had to take out scrived lanterns to see the way. Then they came to a set of winding stairs