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As luck—or Fate—would have it, we found the door not long after.

Halek was never completely silent. Even when he was just following me through the tunnels, he sang softly or hummed under

his breath. He did have a very nice singing voice, I noticed, but I was uneasy at how much attention we could be drawing to

ourselves. Maybe in the sewers, all we would’ve attracted were curious rats, but down in the undercity, anything that took

notice of us would probably be very dangerous.

“Tell me about yourself, Sparrow,” he urged after a few minutes of walking. “What do you do? Have you lived here long?”

I eyed him warily. “Why do you want to know?”

“Just curious.” He shrugged with that disarming smile. “I meet so many interesting people on my travels. I like to get to

know them a bit before moving on.”

“I’ve never left Kovass,” I said, deliberately ignoring the other question. “I was born in the city, and I’ve lived here my

whole life.”

“Oh,” Halek said. His tone was faintly sympathetic. “No desire to go anywhere else? See what other places are out there? See

what lies beyond the Dust Sea and the Endless Dunes and the Broken Plateau?”

I hesitated. Many times, I’d imagined myself hopping aboard one of the sand striders and traveling across the Dust Sea to the lands beyond.

I thought of the small box of treasures in my room, holding my dreams of someday getting out of the Thieves Guild.

But I knew they were just fleeting daydreams. There was no way I could leave Kovass.

I belonged to the guild, but more than that, I was a simple thief.

That was my fate, my place in the Weave.

I didn’t know how to be anything other than what I was.

But it was too hard to explain all this to Halek, so I just shrugged and said, “Not really.”

“Pity.” Halek didn’t elaborate. “Well...” He shrugged. “If you ever get the desire to leave the city and see the world,

I know of several places that shouldn’t be missed.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I muttered, then came to a dead stop in the middle of the passage. Across the channel of dark, sluggish

water, a narrow door was set into the stones. The faded image of a skull wearing a pointed crown had been painted on the wood.

You’ll know the door when you see it , the instructions had said. This had to be it.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Halek commented, observing the door with mild curiosity. “If I were by myself, that would definitely

be a door that begged exploring.”

“Lucky for you,” I said, moving toward the edge of the walk, “that’s exactly where we’re going.”

“Oh, well, Fate continues to smile on me today.”

We hopped across the channel, Halek easily leaping the distance. At least he was fairly agile, from what I’d observed. I didn’t know if he could keep up with me over the rooftops, but he could jump a gap without falling in.

At the door, I hesitated again, glancing at my companion. “Are you sure you want to keep following me?” I asked. “This leads

into the undercity, where they say a Deathless King used to rule. The whole city is under an ancient curse. I don’t know what

we’ll find down there, but I do know it’ll be dangerous. You really should leave now.”

I was trying, again, to scare him away. Usually, mention of a curse would make even the most stalwart hesitate. Unfortunately,

I’d forgotten that Fatechasers did not react to danger like normal people.

“Undercity? Deathless King?” His eyes practically glowed with excitement. “I had no idea. I was intrigued before—now a pack

of wild sand wolves wouldn’t be able tear me away.”

I ground my teeth. “All right, fine. But no singing.”

The door was locked, but the lock was weak and simple and I had it open after a few minutes. I pulled the door back. It gave

a rather ominous groan, and an eerie breath of wind whispered out of the opening, ruffling my hair and smelling of dust and

decay. Beyond the doorframe was a tiny room with a trio of rusty copper pipes running from floor to ceiling. Beside the pipes,

a circular hole with a metal ladder descended into the unknown.

My skin prickled, the hairs on my neck standing up.

But the feeling wasn’t coming from the hole.

Stepping away from Halek, I turned back and gazed down the tunnel we’d just come through, peering into the gloom and shadows.

The passageway was empty, but my heart beat faster, a chill crawling up my spine like a spider.

I couldn’t see anything in the clinging darkness, but fear suddenly clutched at my heart with icy fingers.

Something was coming. I didn’t know how I knew, but I was absolutely sure I didn’t want to meet it.

“Sparrow?” Halek touched my elbow, making me jump. I wasn’t used to being touched, especially by strangers, but his blue eyes

showed only concern. “Are you all right?” he asked. “You’ve gone pale. Do you hear something?”

I silenced my churning stomach and turned back to the doorway. Years of following my gut told me I shouldn’t ignore the instinct,

but I couldn’t turn around and go home. “I’m fine,” I told Halek, ducking through the frame. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Right behind you.”

Stepping to the edge of the hole, I peered down. It plunged straight into pitch darkness, and I couldn’t see any sign of the

bottom. On impulse, I dropped my torch into the hole. It fell for a long, long time, becoming a mere spark in the darkness

before hitting the bottom and instantly snuffing out.

“That’s a long way down,” Halek commented. “And it’s very dark.”

“Hang on,” I muttered, reaching into my pack. “I have another torch.”

He put a hand on my arm, startling me again. He touched so easily, without thought; it was a little disconcerting, but at

the same time, completely without malice, so I didn’t mind it as much as if it had been someone else. Growing up with thieves,

pickpockets, and petty thugs had taught me the value of keeping my distance.

“Just a moment,” he told me. “I have something better.”

Reaching into a pouch at his belt, he withdrew something small and round on a cord. A yellowish stone, but translucent, like

it was made of honey. Cupping it in his hands, he blew on it gently, and a soft orange light began radiating from the tiny

stone, giving off a very lanternlike glow.

Smiling, he handed it to me. “A glowstone from the underground kingdom of the troblin,” he said as I stared at the stone in

amazement. It pulsed softly in my palm like an enormous firefly. “If the light starts to fade, just breathe on it again. It’s

triggered by the heat of your breath.”

“Thank you,” I murmured. How valuable was this stone? I’d never seen anything like it. I’d only heard stories of the troblin,

a race of short, green-skinned people who lived in caves and tunnels so the sunlight wouldn’t hurt their eyes. “I’ll be sure

to give it back,” I told him, though I was extremely tempted to keep it. Our fence would probably faint if I brought this

little gem into his office.

Halek chuckled and shook his head. “I have a dozen of them,” he said easily. “Keep it. That one is yours.”

I tied the cord of the glowstone onto my belt as Halek pulled out a second one and draped it around his neck. With the lights

of the little stones throwing off a comforting glow, I stepped onto the ladder and began the descent into the pitch blackness.

The shaft continued for a long time. And for a while, the only sounds were our breathing and the clunk of our boots against

the metal rungs. Several were broken or missing, causing me to kick frantically in the near blackness for the next rung.

The air turned colder and began to smell of salt and brine. I took the next step down and my boot plunged into icy water that made me yelp and jerk my foot back up.

“What’s wrong?” Halek called from above me.

I peered down. The ladder ended in a pool of black water that glimmered dully in the light of the glowstones. Gazing around,

I saw a stone tunnel half submerged on the opposite side of the shaft. Judging from how much of the tunnel was still visible,

the water level was only a few feet deep. Still, I hadn’t expected to have to get wet today.

Gritting my teeth, I stepped off the ladder, sinking past my knees in cold, brackish-smelling water.

“Was that a splash?” Halek wondered aloud, just as he too reached the end of the ladder and dipped a foot into the water.

“Oh, that’s cold! Why is there water down here? Have we hit a lake or something?”

“It must be the underground sea,” I murmured. Glancing at the tunnel, I grimaced. It looked like it slanted downward. “We’re

going to get even wetter.”

“Well,” Halek said cheerfully, landing next to me with a splash, “it’s a good thing I know how to swim.”

I didn’t know how to swim. Halek aside, I didn’t know anyone who knew how to swim. There was no body of water anywhere near

Kovass large enough that you would have to worry about drowning—there was only the Dust Sea, and if you fell into that , you were doomed to suffocate and lie at the bottom until the waves of dust and sand stripped the flesh from your bones.

Halek glanced at me and smiled. “Don’t worry,” he assured me. “If we get into trouble, I won’t let you drown.”

It was an odd feeling, walking through the tunnel. The water in the passage reached my waist and was colder than anything

I had ever experienced before. Dripping echoed through the passage, and the waves from our passing sloshed against the stone

wall. After several minutes of walking, my body adjusted to the temperature and wasn’t quite so cold. It did not adjust to

the unsettling feeling of being underground in a narrow tunnel full of water.

“I think I see a light ahead,” Halek said at length.

Which should’ve been impossible, because nothing lived down here, but he was right. There was a faint glow in the darkness

ahead of us, not orange like torchlight or candlelight; this was ghostly blue-white luminance. Warily, we kept going, pushing