Chapter 28

It was time to leave, and I was glad for it. There were too many people in the city - too much noise, too many voices, all of it loud and confusing. I didn’t feel safe here. I stayed close to Vaer, because she knew how to move through the crowd without getting shoved around. Somehow she always knew where to go, even when I couldn’t see anything at all. Everyone was so tall that it was easy to lose track of where you were, and I barely understood what most of them were saying. If I got lost, I wouldn’t even know how to ask for help.

The cart filled up, and I had to climb down. I stood nearby and watched Thren and Ashie load the heavy sacks and barrels. It amazed me how strong they were. And how big. They were taller than most of the humans here - nicer, too. They didn’t look at me like they were angry all the time. They gave me things. Ashie slipped me candy now and then, and Thren had given me the blue bird. That one was my favorite bird, though I’d never tell Vaer. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

I wasn’t strong enough to help, so I tried to stay out of the way while they worked. That was when I noticed a blue butterfly drifting down the street. It looked like Vaer’s pin. It fluttered close and settled on the edge of a nearby stall. I reached out slowly, hoping it would climb onto my finger. When I got too close it flapped away, just a few feet. I glanced back at Vaer - she was still helping with the wagon - then took a step closer and tried again.

This time, the butterfly crawled onto my finger.

I smiled and turned to show Vaer.

She was gone.

She had been right there, and then she wasn’t. Panic hit me all at once. Everyone around me was so tall that I couldn’t see past them. I hadn’t meant to go far - only a few steps. Had they left without me? I felt tears sting my eyes and my chest tightened until it was hard to breathe.

Then I saw her through a gap in the crowd.

She was walking away. They were leaving without me.

I pushed at the people around me, trying to get to her. Why were they leaving? Why didn’t they tell me? Some of the people I shoved glared at me or shouted, but I didn’t care. Vaer was getting farther away.

Someone shoved me hard, and I fell. The cobblestones scraped my palms, sharp and painful. I didn’t stop. I had to get back up. I had to get to Vaer.

I scrambled to my feet and pushed again, weaving through the crowd, gaining ground. She turned into an alley, and I **** my way in after her.

There were three men in the alley. Vaer wasn’t there.

Hands grabbed me from behind. I screamed and kicked as one of the men in front shoved a big thick leather bag over my head. They knocked me down, the bag sliding over my shoulders, then my waist. Before I could stop it, it slipped over my feet and I was flipped upside down. Something hard bumped against my back as I was lifted, my head and shoulders crushed against the bottom of the bag. I could barely move.

I had to get out. I had to find Vaer.

I pulled out the knife she’d given me and sawed at the leather. It was thick and stubborn, but I didn’t stop. Eventually I managed to cut a small hole. As much as it pained me, I took Thren’s blue bird, tore off a small piece, and pushed it through the hole. After a moment, I tore off another scrap and shoved that out too. I hoped I would be able to follow the trail back here so I could find Vaer.

* * *

Ashlara dropped into the sewer without hesitation. I followed a heartbeat later, boots splashing into foul water. She crouched immediately, fingers brushing the muck, then straightened. “This way,” she said, already moving. A few yards in she stopped again, plucking a scrap of blue paper from the sludge.

Mirri conjured a small globe of light and sent it floating ahead of us. Even I could follow the trail—fresh impressions pressed into the mildewed filth that coated the tunnel floor.

We reached an intersection where the water deepened, swallowing the clearest tracks. Ashlara didn’t even glance left, where two men stood motionless in the shadows. She just turned right and kept going. The men watched her pass, hands resting on weapons, but they didn’t draw.

Mirri moved past them next, light held high, eyes scanning the ground. The men’s gazes flicked to her as she approached.

The butt of my staff cracked into the first man’s skull before he even realized I was there. The second staggered back, but I was on him in an instant, driving the end of the staff into his throat and pinning him to the wall. He clawed at it, ****, no sound getting through.

I heard Mirri shout my name. Water splashed behind me. I lashed out with my foot, catching the first man in the shoulder as he tried to rise. He slammed into the wall and slid back down into the muck.

I glanced toward the others. They stood at the intersection, staring past me, their eyes sliding away as if I wasn’t there at all.

Pain lanced in my side.

I spun, bringing my staff around just in time. It connected with the second man’s head, and he crumpled, face-first into the sludge, still.

Ashlara had the first man by the throat now, lifting him clean off the ground like he weighed nothing.

“Seth!” Mirri was at my side in an instant. “Shit - we have to bandage you.”

I looked down. A dagger jutted from my side. I reached for it and she slapped my hand away. “You pull that out and you might bleed out, dumbass. Let me handle it.”

“We panicked when you disappeared,” she said as she worked.

“I was worried when you walked right past those guys without even looking at them,” I muttered.

“You saw them?” Ashlara asked.

“Clear as day,” I said. “No idea what you saw, but they were just standing there.”

“A wall,” she replied. “There was a wall there a moment ago.”

“Most likely an illusion,” Mirri said, tugging my shirt up.

“Probably him.” I gestured at the **** man.

She yanked the dagger free and I hissed despite myself. Then she jammed something into the wound that burned like fire. I sucked in a sharp breath as she pressed a bandage into place and wrapped it tight.

When she finished, I lowered my shirt and tested a stretch. It hurt, but I could move. That was enough.

Stopping wasn’t an option. We were getting Lilae back.

I stepped up to the man in Ashlara’s grip. “Some people brought a little goblin girl through here,” I said evenly.

He spat in my face.

I wiped it from my eye with a steady hand, though every instinct I had screamed for ****. “I’m not going to ask you where they took her. We’ll find her, I have no doubt about that.” I leaned closer. “I’m going to ask you something else. And I’m only asking once.”

“Mirri,” I said over my shoulder. “You still have those clamps Grams uses to castrate goats?”

“Right here,” she replied, almost cheerful.

“Good. Get them ready.” I looked back at the man. “We wouldn’t want you to bleed out before we’re done with you. So here’s how this goes - we’re taking your balls. That’s happening no matter what.”

His eyes narrowed and he tried to say something, but Ashlara squeezed his throat, cutting off any sound he was going to make.

“If you answer my question satisfactorily,” I replied without interruption, “I’ll give them back to you. You can limp out of here and see if you can find a healer willing to stitch you together. If I don’t like your answer, I crush your nuts to paste, Ashlara breaks your arms and legs, and we leave you here.”

I smiled thinly. “Your boss is probably going to be furious either way. And if he finds out you talked, he’ll likely kill you. But regardless of what you tell me, I’m going to tell him you talked. I’m going to tell him you sang like a little bird.” I leaned in closer. “So your life’s already forfeit. The only thing you get to decide is how much of a head start you want.”

“If you can hobble your nutless ass out of here, get your stones glued back on, and leave town before your boss finds you, maybe you’ll live a few more years. You look like a smart guy - maybe you can lay low long enough to die of old age. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

I slid the dagger his friend had used on me into his waistband and sliced his trousers down to the crotch. I pressed the blade there firmly to make the point clear.

“So,” I said quietly, “what are they going to do with her?”

* * *

There are few things that set me off like bigotry. I just didn’t understand the hate. I mean, I understood hate in general. I hated the people who took Lilae. I’d felt hate when I found out Derek and Jennifer were fucking. But that hate was justified. I’d been wronged by those people.

What I couldn’t wrap my head around was hating someone who hadn’t done anything at all. Hating them for the color of their skin. For who they prayed to. For who they loved. Hating someone just because they were different felt hollow, like a sickness that ate its host from the inside out.

But that was exactly what we were dealing with.

Lilae had been taken by people who hated anyone who wasn’t like them. And she wasn’t alone. These monsters had been snatching children across the city for months. How they’d managed it without being exposed was beyond me. They took any non-human kids they could get their hands on. Some they kidnapped. Others they bought, like livestock, from slavers beyond the city walls.

All of it to feed into a ritual. One meant to wipe every non-human out of the city.

We moved through the sewers as fast as we dared. Ashlara probably didn’t need the directions the bastard we’d questioned gave us, but after what Mirri did to him, he’d talked. Names. Routes. Guard rotations. How they stayed hidden. The scope of it made my stomach turn.

The guards were involved - watching the gates and streets for new kids. Sabotaging investigations. Burying rumors.

Wizards too. Whether the university sanctioned it or simply looked the other way didn’t really matter. They provided illusions, silence, disappearances. Anyone who asked too many questions stopped asking.

And at the center of it all was a man named Case.

He was supposed to begin the ritual tonight. Thirteen children of each race they wanted gone. Orphans - kids who’d already lost everything once. That was somehow important to the ritual. How many of them had lost their parents to the same people preparing to kill them now?

We dropped anyone we encountered - quietly, efficiently. No alarms. No time. As we got closer, a voice echoed through the tunnels, carrying on the damp air. Every so often it was met with cheers.

The voice spoke of safety. Of order. Of freedom. Of crime and decay and injustice. It spoke of glory and rebirth. I’d heard it all before - fear dressed up as righteousness, the words of powerful men funneled through weaker ones who’d stopped thinking for themselves.

The tunnels opened ahead of us. This was the junction we’d been told about. The place for the ritual.

People crowded the chamber, listening, cheering, secure in their self-righteous hatred. I signaled the others to hang back. I hoped one more human face wouldn’t draw attention.

I slipped into the room.

There had to be fifty people packed along a raised walkway that ringed the chamber. Below them sprawled a wide cistern, dark water trickling in from half a dozen tunnels before spilling away into a plunge of blackness. The rush of water - probably the river - echoed distantly through the space. The space was lit by magical lights hovering in the air.

Dozens of children knelt on the lower level, chained in place, small heads bowed. My gaze tore across them until I found her.

Lilae.

I almost moved right then. But there were too many people, too many eyes and hands. I needed the others. I needed a plan.

Beyond the children stood the man addressing the crowd. He was tall, dark-haired, old enough to command authority without seeming frail. His voice carried easily, weaving words that sounded just and reasonable, even as they stoked fear and sharpened anger. The crowd leaned toward him, hanging on every syllable.

Behind him rose a stone pedestal. Resting atop it was a stone sphere the size of a beach ball, its surface carved with sharp, biting runes that caught the light in all the wrong ways.

I started backing away when a hand clamped onto my shirt.

“Where ya goin’, man?” a voice growled. “Fun’s just about ta start.”

“Gotta take a leak,” I said. “Be right back.”

“Naw,” he said, dragging me toward the edge. “No pussy-footin’ now. This is what we been waitin’ for.”

Below us, the speaker finished his sermon to a roar of approval. He stepped behind a pedestal where a stone sphere sat, gray and dull. He placed his hands on either side and began chanting in a language that crawled over my skin.

The sphere flared to life, glowing a sick, poisonous green.

I didn’t have time.

I spun Adhaneth horizontally and pushed, knocking as many people off the balcony as I could. Bodies tumbled down into the chamber. It wasn’t far, but they weren’t ready for it. I was the only one who landed on my feet.

A bolt of pale green energy lashed out from the sphere and struck one of the children. There was a flash and then nothing but bones.

Shouts filled the air. A scream tore through the chamber. Then a roar.

“Lilae!” I ran to her, dropping to my knees. Chains bound her wrists to a rusted iron ring set into the stone. “I’ll get you out of here,” I said, forcing calm into my voice. I tried to jam the end of my staff into the ring. It skipped off, too big to fit. I tried again.

The end of the staff warped, deformed, and then slid into the ring. I jerked it up and the rusty iron snapped.

Something slammed into my back, sending me sprawling. I planted Adhaneth and pushed, launching myself upright and flinging my attacker away. Another arc leapt from the sphere. A man nearby screamed once before his flesh burned away, leaving a smoking skeleton.

I grabbed Lilae and vaulted back up to the balcony, shoving her into Mirri’s arms. “Get her out of here!” I shouted.

Then I jumped back down.

The sphere blazed brighter, lightning arcing faster now, tearing through bodies, reducing people to bones in bursts of green fire.

A wave of energy slammed into me and ripped my feet out from under me. As I hit the ground, the bones scattered around the chamber began to move. They rattled and scraped their way upright, knitting themselves together into skeletal forms. Baleful fire kindled in their empty eye sockets as they turned toward the living.