Windwitch (The Witchlands 2)

“Forty-eight, forty-nine.” Cam gave a floppy shrug. “Right size, I think. And I’ve worn shoes before, sir. When I was younger. Just never had much of a reason to keep ’em.”

“So what’s the reason today?”

“Are you fishing for a thank-you?” Cam made a face, her nose wrinkling up—and Merik found himself chuckling.

Which made his throat hurt. And his chest. And his face. But at least his laugh earned one of Cam’s wildfire smiles.

“Thank you for the boots, sir.” She swept a bow. “I am now ready for Shite Street.”

“I’m not.” Merik pushed himself upright, muscles and new skin resisting. The salve had helped, but his sleep had been restless. Filled with dreams of Lejna storms and fallen buildings and Kullen begging, “Kill … me.”

Merik was grateful when Cam slipped into her usual storyteller role over breakfast. He was grateful, too, that she didn’t seem to notice the fresh scabs across his knuckles—nor the fact that he had snuck off while she slept.

“Best entrance to the Cisterns,” Cam explained through a mouthful of too-juicy plums, “is by the Northern Wharf.” On she babbled, as she so loved to do, about the best routes through the underground. The safest tunnels. The gangs that competed for space.

Merik listened, noting—not for the first time—that she rarely told stories about herself. He’d heard endless tales of things she’d seen or of secondhand histories from someone else, yet never narratives from her own life.

The longer he stared at her bright-eyed face, the more the old nursery rhyme sang in his skull.

Fool brother Filip led blind brother Daret

deep into the black cave.

He knew that inside it, the Queen Crab resided,

but that didn’t scare him away.

Merik couldn’t recall how the rest of the song went, and so that one verse kept chanting again and again, in time to each chomp of his plum.

By the time he and Cam, both hooded as always, set off into the streets of Old Town, the eleventh chimes were tolling. Late-morning traffic folded them into its currents, and they traveled east, with Cam leading the way.

A languid fog hung over the streets. Last night’s rain, rising as the sun burned hotter, brighter. Before Merik and Cam had even passed the final decrepit homes of Old Town, sweat seeped from Merik’s skin.

Cam aimed right at a butcher’s bloodied front stoop and then crossed two more busy thoroughfares. As always, she let her gut guide them, swirling back to pluck Merik from traffic whenever soldiers came too near.

Soon enough, they reached the busiest wharf in Lovats. Here, not a single patch of water was visible between the boats. Had Merik wanted, he could skip clear across the harbor, stepping from pram to frigate to skiff and eventually onto a cobbled, shop-lined street a quarter mile away.

It was precisely the sort of challenge he’d have loved as a boy. He and Kullen both.

Kill … me.

Cam beckoned Merik onward to a slant of steps underground. Once, it had been a market, where goods fresh off the river were sold—Merik remembered visiting in boyhood. Before Jana had passed. Before Vivia had transformed forever.

While some brave merchants still attempted to hawk their wares, Merik saw more homeless and hungry than anything else as he followed Cam into the shadows. Almost all sconces affixed to the damp flagstones were empty, candles long stolen or lanterns long smashed.

The racket from above softened, morphing into higher voices. Children’s. Women’s. Merik’s eyes adjusted, and families materialized in the gloom. Water dripped from the curved ceiling to gather in puddles underfoot that splashed as Merik and Cam marched by.

Unacceptable. This tunnel, these families, this life that they were all resigned to. Help is coming, Merik wanted to say. I’m working as fast as I can.

“This way, sir.” Cam veered right. Two old men playing taro separated just enough for her and Merik to weave through. Then the girl vanished into a slice of darkness where no fire’s glow reached.

They walked through the darkness for fifty-six paces (Cam counted, as she always did) before a pale yellow glow sparked ahead. Another fifty-two paces, and they reached it: a lantern, Firewitched, illuminating a sharp right turn in the tunnel. Then more darkness—this time for a hundred and six steps, with water dripping the entire way.

At last, though, he sensed a shift in Cam’s step. The girl was slowing with a rustle, like fingers brushing a wall, before she vanished.

Just disappeared.

One moment, Merik heard Cam’s tired breaths and clomping bootfalls. The next, there was nothing but the plopping of water droplets.

So Merik did as Cam had, skimming the tunnel wall with his palm and proceeding onward …

Power frizzed over him.

It lasted a single breath, the temperature dropping low. The air sucking from his ears and lungs. Then he was through. The light returned, uneven but bright. A low brick tunnel stretched side to side, while sounds rolled into Merik from all directions—men’s shouts and thumping feet.

And the roar of waters channeling through some distant tunnel every few moments.

Cam fiddled with her hood for a moment, towing it so low her face was completely hidden. “Should’ve warned you about the old ward-spells. They’re meant to keep people out, I suppose, but clearly they ain’t working so well anymore. Oh, but pardon me, sir. Where are my manners?” She opened her hands wide. “Welcome to my second home, sir. Welcome to the Cisterns.”