Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 134898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 540(@250wpm)___ 450(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 540(@250wpm)___ 450(@300wpm)
“Well, someone is lying!”
“And how do I know it’s not you just being hysterical?”
“Because I want Raptor back alive, damn it! The people who sent him there don’t! They want him and the others to clear out the drop that’s full of ratlings so they can route the stolen goods through it via a secret tunnel in the archives!”
“There’s a secret tunnel in the archives?” Sparrow asks, shocked.
“Behind some crates. It looks like a shelf full of old scrolls, but it can be moved aside. It comes out to Drop Twenty-Seven, which has a hidden passage that heads out of the city. That’s how the thieves are moving about.” I point at Rooster when he opens his mouth. “And before you accuse me of being a thief, if I was, why would I tell you all my secrets?”
“Then how do you know all this?” Rooster asks. “If even the rest of the guild isn’t aware of such passages?”
I can’t say. I can’t tell him that dead Hemmen’s ghost showed me everything. I make a wordless sound and look to Sparrow for help.
But Rooster’s eyes narrow. “You’re the mancer, aren’t you?”
His voice is low enough that the repeaters won’t hear him, but it still feels too public, too loud. My tongue glues itself to the roof of my mouth.
“That’s why you were in that meeting. That’s why Raptor wouldn’t name who it was. Still won’t name who the mancer is. He’s protecting you.”
I hesitate, and then step forward, moving in closer to him. “I promise you that I just want to save Raptor. Please, help me get him out of the tunnels, and you can burn me in the plaza later. Just please, please trust me when I say that he’s very much in danger. Him and the others with him.”
Rooster stares at me long and hard. Then he gestures at the supervisor. “I’m going down with this woman. I want three enforcers to come with me.”
“Best bring all of them, sir,” I say, relieved. “There are a lot of ratlings.”
Kipp pats his sword handle and lifts his fist in the air.
“Yeah, what about us?” Arrod asks. “Kipp and I are ready.”
Rooster points at them. “You two stay here under supervision. If your friend is lying, all of you are going to be locked up for a very long time.”
“It’s not a lie,” I say, antsy. I move closer to the basket, and the enforcers file in, Rooster putting his hand on my elbow and guiding me in after them. With a creak, the door on the basket is shut and we’re lowered a jerky handspan, then another.
The supervisor leans over, as if inspecting our progress downward. “She’s right, you know. It’s not a lie.”
Then he nods at his repeaters, pulling back.
Before we can ask what he means, the basket flies down the shaft, the ropes cut. It swings against the walls and then careens down into the darkness, and I fly up into the air, barely able to grab onto one of the ropes before my head hits something hard and I fall unconscious.
Forty-Eight
Gwenna
“Wake up.”
A hard slap across the face snaps me awake. I jerk, startled, and stare up at Rooster’s round face and his crappy little mustache. He’s got blood trickling down his nose and a cut above his eyebrow, and his clothing is torn. He holds up an oil lamp, looking me over.
“Good,” he says in a flat voice. “You’re alive. Can you sit up?”
I honestly don’t know. I stare up at my surroundings, and a bit of dust drifts into my eyes. It’s dark, but I can see a few dim lights far, far up on the ceiling. It takes me a moment to realize that those are the lights from the drop, and we’re somewhere at the bottom. Then I remember the look on the supervisor’s face, the way the basket we stood in tumbled in free fall, and then…nothing.
My head throbs, but I don’t feel the skin-crawling, gut clenching sensation that tells me that there’s someone newly dead nearby. Just lots of old, old dead, but they aren’t bothering me too much due to the other aches and pains in my body, and I can ignore them at the moment.
I manage to sit up, wincing. “Everyone’s alive.”
“That’s what I’m checking,” Rooster says, and then pauses. “Wait, you mean…”
I nod, pressing my palm to my throbbing temple. “I’d feel it if they were dead.”
He lets out a long breath. “Thank Romus for his mercy, because I can’t get Karref to wake up.” He gestures at one of the enforcers, tumbled on the far side of the basket. “I’ll let him rest, then.”
I glance up again, at the tall, impossibly tall, shaft. “The thieves tried to kill us. How did we live through that?”
“The baskets are padded underneath. Lots of pillows to cushion things in case something broke. Or, you know, was deliberately broken.” Rooster limps over to one of the other men and taps him on the cheek. “Wake up, Jenkins.”