City of Lies - Lian Tanner [48]
“I didn’t see four.”
Cord’s feet thumped down the stairs, and the glow of a lantern seeped into the tunnel. “Ha! They don’t keep multiplyin’.”
“Where’s Flense got to?” said Smudge. “Don’t tell her that it were me who caught ’em!”
Bonnie was shivering. Goldie put her arms around the younger girl. “Don’t worry, Princess Frisia,” she whispered, “Morg’ll find us. She’ll get into the building somehow. She’ll chase them away.”
Toadspit grunted. “They’ll be expecting her this time.”
“We’re not going to give up, are we?” said Bonnie.
“No,” whispered Goldie. “Harrow’s far too dangerous.”
Mouse nodded and drew his finger across his throat in a gesture that made her skin crawl.
“Goldie, are you sure it was Guardian Hope you saw?” whispered Toadspit. “It doesn’t make sense. What would she be doing here? Why would she be working for someone like Harrow?”
“I don’t know—” Goldie stopped. All the things she had seen and heard over the last few days tumbled through her head, making unexpected patterns.…
She let go of Bonnie. “The bomb!”
“What bomb?” whispered Bonnie. “You mean the one in the Fugleman’s office?”
“Yes. That was Harrow. At least, someone told me it was. But why would he do such a thing?” The patterns shifted. The bits clicked into place like pins in a padlock. “Who gained from it?”
“No one,” said Toadspit.
Goldie shook her head. “Don’t you remember? Before the bombing, there was a rumor that the Protector was going to halve the number of Blessed Guardians. And everyone was really pleased. But after the bombing, they were so frightened that they wanted more Guardians, not fewer. They almost doubled their numbers overnight.”
“But—” said Toadspit.
“Listen,” breathed Goldie. “Guardian Hope is Flense. I saw her! So who’s Harrow? Who would she work for? Who is the only person Guardian Hope would work for?”
For a moment there was complete silence except for the sound of running water. Then Toadspit said, in a shocked voice, “It’s—it’s the Fugleman! It must be. He’s still alive. He had Bonnie stolen. He bombed his own office!”
At the entrance to the tunnel, someone cleared their throat. Iron shutters scraped and lantern light splashed across the children’s faces.
The blood froze in Goldie’s veins.
“Well, well,” said Guardian Hope. “Have you noticed, Cord, how these old sewers magnify the slightest whisper? If a person happened to be listening, a person could hear the most interesting things.”
The Fugleman was having trouble with all this humility. It rubbed against his skin like sacking. He loathed it.
He loathed the dungeons too. And so, last night, he had set out to persuade his guards to let him sleep in the office for a change. He had smiled his charming smile, and twisted the truth this way and that like toffee. Before five minutes had passed, the guards were smiling back at him. Before ten minutes, they thought the whole sleeping-in-the-office thing was their idea.
It was wonderfully easy when he put his mind to it.
As a result, he was dozing in a comfortable chair when the runner from the semaphore station arrived. He heard his guards jerk upright. He raised his own head more slowly.
“Your Honor,” said the runner. “An urgent message has come through.” She thrust an envelope into his hand.
The message was coded, of course, like all the others he had received. It was a simple code, one that he had worked out with Guardian Hope several weeks ago.
Think we have found children meant Have brats under lock and key.
Closing in on villains meant All goes according to plan, no one suspects us.
They had allowed for things to go wrong. But he had never seriously expected to see the message that now lay before him.
Children not sighted since last report. Believe they are still alive, but extremely ill. Please advise.
His gorge rose, so that he felt as if he might vomit. He forced himself to be still.
“Are you sure of this wording?” he asked the young woman. “I know the semaphore is difficult at night. Perhaps not all of the lamps were lit.”
“They ran the check code, Your Honor,