The Bone Palace - Amanda Downum [45]
“When you do sleep, do you dream?” She meant it to be clinical, but wistfulness crept into the words.
“Yes.” He said nothing else, and soon drifted ahead again.
Of course they must, Isyllt thought. Nothing freed you from the past. Not even death.
He stopped not long after, letting Isyllt and Khelséa catch up. As they approached, the witchlight revealed rusty iron bars bound with a heavy chain.
Khelséa pulled the cloacae’s skeleton key from her pocket, but it didn’t turn in the lock. “Well,” she said mildly. “This is problematic. I didn’t think to bring a saw.”
Isyllt leaned her head against the cold bars. Nothing even remotely human-sized would fit through them, unless vampires could turn to shadows like the penny bloods suggested. She remembered Tenebris, and wondered how far from the truth those stories really were.
“We could try to swim under….” She didn’t try to keep the disgust from her voice.
Khelséa examined the lock. “It doesn’t look like this has been opened recently. So if your vampires did come this way, how did they get through? Unless they swam.” She didn’t sound any more thrilled with the prospect.
“There are,” Spider said after a pause, “other tunnels down here. Crawlspaces and byways that I doubt are on your maps. I imagine whoever comes this way leaves the lock intact to avoid attention.”
“You imagine?” Isyllt’s eyes narrowed. “Have you known all along where we were going?”
“I suspected it.” He shrugged one shoulder, a disturbing articulation of bones. “You wouldn’t have trusted me if I’d had too much information too soon.”
“I don’t trust you now. But if you make me swim through the sewers again when there’s an easier way, I’ll give a few new scars for your collection.”
He laughed, like dry leaves scraping stone. “There’s always an easier way.” He twined two fingers through the shackle of the lock, another two through the nearest link of chain, and twisted. Link and lock groaned, and the shackle snapped free of the body with a screech. The sound echoed down the tunnel.
“Easier, but not quieter.” Isyllt fought the urge to cover her aching ears. If the vrykoloi were in their den, they’d soon know someone was coming.
“We hear you mortals crawling through the tunnels no matter how softly you walk,” Spider said. “Like mice in the attic, but clumsier.”
He stilled abruptly, raising a hand to cut off Isyllt’s reply; his ears twitched. She listened, but heard nothing but water and a distant carriage.
“Speaking of mice…” Spider’s wide mouth twisted in a frown. “I hear you, too, Azarné. Come out.”
For several heartbeats there was no reply. Then the tiny vrykola melted out of the shadows. She didn’t move with Spider’s drifting ghostly grace, but with the lazy purpose of a predator. Isyllt didn’t doubt her deadliness for an instant, despite her size and delicate, almost childlike beauty. Her eyes flashed in the light like an animal’s; also yellow, but a warmer, more golden shade than Spider’s. Her clothes had been lace and velvet once, something lovely, but now they hung in stains and tatters.
“You’re turning up quite often lately,” Spider said, still frowning. “One might mistrust it.”
Azarné smiled—or bared her teeth; Isyllt couldn’t be certain. Either way, fangs flashed white, incongruous behind her tiny rosehip lips. “There’s much to mistrust in the catacombs these days. Thieves and schemes and strangers.” Her eyes flickered over Khelséa, and Isyllt thought she saw disappointment there. Ciaran often had that effect on mortal women—why not undead ones too?
“I’m Isyllt,” she said, stepping forward and holding out a hand. “And my friend is Khelséa. Fewer strangers now, at least.”
Azarné stared at the outstretched hand as one might at an unexpected dead mouse. Then she reached out and clasped it briefly, cold and light, with the echo of a courtier’s grace. “Manners,” the vrykola said, with a sound that might have been a laugh. “I remember those, I think.” She sank into a curtsy, ruined skirts pooling around