Page 57 of Brimstone

Rats skittered out of narrow gaps between the buildings, screeching as they bolted away from us. There was nothing back here but a few ancient-looking sandstone houses that looked like they would crumble with the smallest shove.

“We’re not going to the treasury,” Carrion said, forging ahead toward the end of the alley.

He was joking. Had to be. “Say that again?”

“Madra stripped this whole city of all metal, precious and otherwise, a long time ago. She’s paranoid as hell about people having access to it. So what do you think her treasury is going to be like, Kingfisher? Is she likely to store all of her metals in the kind of place that would be easy to break into? Or is she going toput them someplace not even the gods themselves would be able to access?”

We had reached the end of the alleyway. “Your point?”

“No one has ever broken into Madra’s treasury. No one even knows where it is. And believe me, I spent a good part of the last thousand years trying to figure that out myself. We don’t have time to solve that mystery right now, so I’m taking you to the next best source of silver I can think of.” He cut me a roguish grin. “The Brigand’s Bank.”

“Why am I not surprised that you have an account at a place called the Brigand’s Bank?”

“Oh, I don’t have an account, Lord Cahlish.” He winked at me. “Iownit.”

He arced his boot over the ground between us, sweeping back waves of sand to reveal a worn wooden hatch with no handle beneath. The bastard was unbearably smug as he squatted down and pressed his palm against the splintered wood. I heard the inner workings of a lock being opened from the other side, and then the small hatch popped up just enough for Carrion to wedge his fingers into the gap and lift it open.

An act of small magic.

I shouldn’t have been surprised that he was capable of such things. Even uneducated and untrained in his powers, Carrion must have noticed he could do things that other people couldn’t. The Daianthus line possessed more magic than many of the other houses in Yvelia.

“That smells like a sewer,” I observed, peering into the dark hole.

Swift laughed. “It does. But you’ll be relieved to know that this is actually how the Hub’s supply of clean water is delivered. Delightful, right?”

Zilvaren was an ancient city. It had existed long before Madra ascended to the throne. A feat of engineering, it had once been the seat of a council of magic users. Laws had been passed here. There had been hanging gardens, and beautiful water fountains large enough for the city’s children to play in. The history of this place was well documented in Yvelia. It had always been circular, shaped like a wheel, yes, but it was Madra who had segregated it into wards. The huge walls that divided Zilvaren—and itspeople—sank deep underground. When you wanted to build high on an unstable foundation, you had no choice but to dig deep for purchase. The dank tunnels Carrion guided us through were tall enough for a man to stand at his full height, but not a Fae male. I habitually ducked my head along most of the route, forgetting I was shorter than normal. Whenever we hit one of the walls’ buttresses—Carrion using magic I hadn’t known he possessed to open heavy wooden doors in the meter-thick stonework—wedidhave to double over to make it through the gap.

Carrion had found a torch that he’d apparently left at the tunnel entrance for this exact purpose. Its orange glow threw a halo of light up the walls and gave off just enough light for us to see by as we sloshed through the ankle-deep water.

The smell had gone from unpleasant to downright foul as we’d passed beneath one ward, then another, then another. I had smelled fields of corpses after a battle that were less offensive than these tunnels. I started breathing through my mouth after the fourth door we passed through . . . and then quickly reverted back to inhaling through my nose. Breathing through my mouth meant I couldtasteit.

“I admit, this was a whole lot less disgusting when I was glamored before,” Carrion groaned. “You might have changed the way I looked, but I think I retained my Fae sense of smell this time around.”

I kept my mouth shut and glowered at the back of his head.

Eventually, he announced that we had come far enough and gestured to yet another wooden hatch overhead. “I can’t reach it. There’s nothing for me to stand on,” he said. “You’re gonna have to let me boost up on your shoulder.”

“No.”

“All right, then, you boost yourself up onmyshoulder. Either way, one of us has to get up there, and unless you can grow your arms or something . . .”

“For fuck’s sake.” I made a cradle for his boot out of my hands. “Just get it over with already.”

The next few minutes were very annoying. I had Swift’s ass in my face for at least thirty seconds, which were thirty seconds I would have to remember to blot from my memory once all of this was done. Then I had to help push him out of the fucking hole. And then I had to jump up and grab the sides of the hatch and pull myself up anyway because he couldn’t find anything long enough to lower down and pull me up.

Useless.

The light from the twin suns had somehow gotten stronger while we’d been navigating the tunnels. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the brightness as I stretched my back and brushed off my leathers.

Carrion sat on top of a low, crumbling wall, watching me with that telltale glimmer in his eyes that meant he was about to say something that would make my blood boil. And sure enough . . .

“Y’know, I’ve just realized something.”

“What?”

“You are completely at my disposal right now, aren’t you. This next step in our plan relies entirely on me taking us somewhere and securing us an inordinate amount of silver. Which I think is probably worth something, no?”

“No.”