1
Boots strike the cobblestone in the alleyway, as sharp to my ears as a dagger being pulled across a whetstone. I press my shoulder into the corner of the building and peer down the narrow squeeze that leads to the alcove where I’m frozen, holding my breath. This is going to be one of two people, and I just hope it’s—
My eyes catch on the flap of a dragon-blood red cloak, and I suck back into the shadows, praying he didn’t see.
Dragon-burned hells. Iknewhe was following.
I strain my ears as the footsteps disappear. But then they return, slower, more purposeful. The crunch of gravel in the tight passage between buildings has me sucking in a breath. There’s nowhere to run.
Pulling myself as tight to the wall as I can, I shut my eyes and lock my muscles into complete stillness, but the footsteps draw ever closer. And as I feel the cool wisp of shadow fall across my face, I know:
I’m so incredibly, impossibly screwed.
Opening my eyes, I expect to see Lucan’s towering form. Instead, I’m met with a familiar emerald gaze set against freckled cheeks above the biggest grin.
“Surprise,” Saipha whispers.
“Oh, thank Valor.” I yank her closer to me, pulling her from view right as the other footsteps cross the alleyway.Again.
We wait to speak until he’s gone.
“Sorry I’m late. I think you know why,” Saipha whispers.
“Because the hound the vicar sends after me was sniffing around your ankles?” I say dryly. “He see you?”
“Pffft,” she scoffs. “He’s not good enough to see me if Idon’t want him to.” But I notice how Saipha doesn’t lower her hood. It’s the same sandy gray as the stone all of Vinguard is constructed from. Like me, she’s dressed to blend in. Her eyes drift to the heavy wooden door over my left shoulder. “Isola, is that what I think it is?”
“Yep.” My turn to grin. “I found it.”
A way in. Or, more accurately, a wayup.
“How do you keep finding these?” She’s shocked but absolutely delighted. I can tell by the way she shifts her weight from foot to foot, trying not to bounce up and down like she did when we were kids and I agreed to play her favorite game: Mercy Knight and dragon.
I was always the dragon.
“I’m stuck under the Grand Chapel of Mercy more days than not,” I say. “The library is full of ancient maps of Vinguard.” And those maps show where all the old watchtowers are—towers that have long since been mortared together into a massive wall that now rings Vinguard.
“But those without the gilding can’t access the library,” she says reflexively. Then immediately blanches as I lock eyes with her. I wave a hand in front of mytwogolden irises, the only matching set in Vinguard. Saipha folds her arms, glancing away, mumbling, “Point taken. I still didn’t think the vicar would let you into the library, since you’re not a full citizen yet.”
“He doesn’t. Not on my own, at least. But I do it anyway.” As if to underscore my point, I push on the door we’re also very much not allowed to enter.
The wood is ancient, hollowed by insects and hundreds of years of weathering. It splits apart at the heavy iron bars that help give it structure, crumbling with a heavyclangthat feels more ominous than the bells on the wall.
We both freeze.
My chest squeezes, heart skipping a beat.
Saipha slowly leans back, glancing down the shadow-crossed gap between the buildings back to the alleyway.
“Any sign of him?” I whisper.
She shakes her head. Without another word, we step inside quickly, having had the same thought at the same time:Let’s not stand at the scene of the crime.
There’s a tiny room—a landing, really, at the base of a spiral stair. The air is stale and thick with age. But the small hairs at my temples catch on the slightest of winds. With the door open, there’s a cross-breeze. That means there’s an opening somewhere above.
Saipha taps my shoulder and holds out a lantern.
I resist the urge to tease her about stealing her father’s lantern—property of a Mercy Knight—and press my thumb into the lower corner where two lines emerge from behind a plate. Etherlight flows from the soles of my feet, up through my body, and into the pads of my fingers. As the lantern flares to life, a faint golden glow illuminates the ancient stair that’s quickly swallowed by the darkness above.
