Page 12

I’d clapped my hand firmly over his mouth in an instant. “Shut up, you idiot!”

Patrick slipped my grasp. “It’sink.”

“We’re in a storage room next to asiphon’ ceremony, half-wit. What did you think you’d find?”

A clatter above announced the arrival of another, and my blood turned cold.

Yellow light descended into the cellar through the open hatch. “In here” ordered a bodiless voice.

In the space between breaths, Patrick extinguished his lighter. His fingers made a fist in the front of my blouse and he pulled me sideways. We tucked into a far, dark corner, where damp-smelling linens hung out of overflowing boxes and concealed the top halves of our bodies. I prayed the shadows would obscure our legs.

Sounds of movement and harsh breathing came, though I saw nothing beyond the browning cloth. Deliverymen, I assumed, carrying supplies overhead and dumping it where directed. An assertive voice instructed them. “Not there! Overthere.”

The interminable thumping of my heart. The shuffle of Patrick’s feet. The feel of his breaths on the crown of my head. My fingers shaking inhis.Surely, I thought.If they come down here, we’ll be heard. We’ll be found.

Patrick squeezed my fingers.Hush.

“Idium, sir?” a gruff voice asked.

“In the cellar” came the answer.

My heart seized.

I heard the grunts of a man clambering down into the dark, the dull thud of his feet finding the ground. “Pass it down,” he called.

I didn’t dare look. I sealed my eyes shut and prayed. There was the sound of wood against wood and the music of shifting glass. “These ones got wax seals on ’em.” The man heaved on each word as though he’d run several miles. “Never seen ’em bother with wax. What do you—?”

“Be on your way” was the only response. Footsteps sounded on the ladder and then receded, but the yellow light remained. Was the room above empty? Was it safe to emerge?

Another voice suddenly joined the last, and I jumped. I stepped on Patrick’s foot and felt him wince.

This time, the voice was high-pitched and lilting. It bounced off the walls. A woman’s heeled footsteps slapped the tiles above as she spoke. “Thomas, have someone come and collect the clutter out in the hall, the crates are piling up again and we’re not yet halfway through the siphonings. Where onearthare your staff?”

“Bringing in the deliveries, ma’am.”

“Then do it yourself. And bring more vials, if you please.”

The male voice seemed to hesitate. I heard him shift his feet nervously. “Ma’am… the, er… thewax seals, or?”

“No,” said the woman. “We’ve got just about all the Artisan children needed this year, the water Charmer was one of the last. Only brink towns are left.” A pause, perhaps only half a second. Enough time, though, for my heart to collapse in its cage, for Patrick’s hand to turn limp, for both of our frames to shudder, rocked at the foundation.

“Bring the Crafter-marked vials. With any luck, we’ll be finished ahead of schedule,” said the woman.

The man seemed to start a sentence, then think better. “There’s a girl in the courtyard,” he said. “Small, ginger hair. Thin as a reed. It doesn’t seem like she’s eaten in a good while.”

The woman sighed deeply but not unkindly. “She was fed on the train,” she said. “And she’ll be fed again before she returns to her family.”

“Just seems like one or two of the poorer ones could be spared that life,” the man continued. “It’d be easy enough to swap the vial—”

“Speak wisely,” hissed the woman, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Such thoughts will have you swinging from the gallows, sir. Do you understand me?”

A shuffle. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Only a handful are trusted with this knowledge, and you are paid handsomely for your remit, are you not?”

“Yes, ma’am.” It sounded more defeated this time.

A gentle sigh came, and then, “There have always been those more fortunate than others, Thomas. It is the way of the world, however unkind. Not all can be trusted with power. It must be meted outcarefully.”