you’d probably gaze back at her with adoring moon eyes.”
Yanko did not want to think about Arayevo, especially if she had slept with that knob-headed captain, and then taken off while leaving them behind.
“It looks like the trap can be triggered again and again,” he said, studying the ground and searching for more places that could be indented. “I think I can lead us past it now that I know what I’m looking for.”
“Think, huh?”
“Step precisely where I step.” Yanko thought of the skeletons near the mouth of the cave. Had they belonged to people who had been caught by the flames? Maybe they had run, their skin scorched and melting from their bodies, hoping to find relief in the pool. But they had never made it. Or maybe some of them had. If one dove to the bottom, would one find more skeletons?
“What if I wait here and don’t do any stepping at all?” Lakeo muttered.
Yanko had already started through the trap area, but he paused to look back. Maybe it would be better if she did stay behind. Why endanger both of them? But he didn’t like the way she was gazing back in the direction of the waterfall, her face full of contemplation. Was she thinking of stealing the underwater boat again? Yanko doubted that submerging and steering it would be easy skills to master, especially if it relied upon Turgonian technology instead of Kyattese magic. She might end up damaging it or sending it to the bottom of the pool where nobody could use it.
“That’s up to you,” Yanko said, “but I’m not going to loot anything back there except for the lodestone. If you want riches, you better come along.”
Lakeo propped a fist on her hip. “Really, Yanko? If you found a pirate’s stash, you wouldn’t bring back a valuable piece of treasure for a lady? That’s inconsiderate.”
Yanko continued on, concentrating on the ground and the trigger points rather than replying.
After issuing a dramatic sigh, Lakeo followed him, shadowing him step for step.
“We’re past the area,” he said when they had left the Made rock behind. “I’ll continue slowly and watch for more trouble.”
“Good thing you’re leading. Apparently, I have the senses of a rock.” Her tone had gone from flippant to disgusted.
“You just need practice.”
“I need a good school. That’s all I want the money for, you know. I don’t want to steal things to pay for it. But a seventy-year-old pirate’s treasure, that’s fair game, right? Anyone can claim it—and sell it to pay for a ridiculously exorbitant education.”
Yanko wasn’t so sure that Tomokosis’s stash would be considered “fair game” by the Kyattese, not when the stolen items had come out of their museum and had been recorded and itemized in their archives and newspapers. There would be no question as to who the rightful owners were. It was possible Tomokosis had dragged other items back here, he supposed, ones whose provenance would be unknown. Those might be claimed.
“Perhaps you could find someone who would take you on as an apprentice,” he suggested, then lifted a hand, sensing another Made item ahead of them. It felt similar to the last, where the rocks themselves had been treated. He spotted more of the places on the ground that could be indented and nodded to himself.
“I don’t know any masters who would train a... me,” Lakeo said.
“You are nettlesome.”
“Careful, Yanko. You’ll offend someone with that profane mouth someday.”
He pointed at the ground. “Follow my steps again.”
“Same kind of trap?”
“It appears to be so.”
“How unimaginative. I figured the second trap would involve a flood or maybe the walls would come crashing together and squish us.”
“Just be glad they’ve been magical so far.” Yanko walked close to the wall, avoiding the triggers on the ground. “Tomokosis must have had a Maker for a cohort. If he’d had an engineer... well, I wouldn’t be able to sense non-magical traps.” He grimaced at the thought. What if Tomokosis had brought an engineer with him, or had possessed such skills himself? Yanko had better watch for physical tripwires as well as magical ones.
A scream tore through the air, coming from ahead of them.
Yanko jumped, then cursed himself. If he was careless and brought a foot down on one of the trigger spots, he could never shield Lakeo and himself in time. He wasn’t even sure he had the ability to shield against the power of the infernos.
“That sounded like a woman,” Lakeo whispered, a step behind him.
A second scream traveled