Kurtz didn’t argue, merely closed his eyes. The seconds stretched unbearably long as Cole waited, frustration building into something raw and desperate. He wanted to shout at Kurtz to hurry. Instead, he rubbed Cherix’s neck, trying to calm his trembling hands.
Kurtz finally came back to himself. “Crow thinks there’s a vault or cavern beneath the Black Boar. He’s never been in it and doesn’t know where the door is, but he swears he’s heard footsteps descending under the floorboards.”
Cole didn’t wait for more. He jerked Cherix’s reins and galloped back toward the Black Boar, snow spraying up around him as they tore through the night.
When they reached the tavern, Kurtz took Cherix’s reins. “I’ll put them up. Go on inside.”
Cole dismounted and rushed into the tavern, which was nearly empty now. The scattered chairs and few lit lanterns made the place feel strangely hollow.
He found Nash in the office, holding open a scroll, a candle guttering beside him.
“There’s an underground chamber here,” Cole said. “How do I get to it?”
Nash frowned, and the scroll he’d been reading curled on the desk in front of him. “There’s no underground chamber.”
“Crow thinks there is.” Cole eyed the walls. “He told Kurtz he’s heard footsteps going down stairs.”
“Crow’s crazy,” Nash said.
“What if he’s not?”
“I take it you didn’t find Miss Wepp outside.”
Cole clenched his teeth. “We did not.”
Nash sighed and pushed his chair back with a scrape. “I’m telling you, there’s no lower level. Look for yourself.”
In the distance, a door slammed, and bootsteps preceded Kurtz’s arrival in the office doorway, hair dusted with snow. “Well?”
“There’s no downstairs,” Nash repeated. “Check if you want.”
“A trapdoor, perhaps?” Kurtz asked.
Cole eyed the office floor, studying it for cutout lines.
Nash shrugged. “I’ve never seen one. Maybe in Fenris’s office?”
Cole’s pulse quickened. He exchanged a glance with Kurtz. “Show us,” he said, already moving out into the tavern.
Nash led them to the door just down from his. He opened it, revealing a long, narrow room that felt like it might have been built for storage. It held only a scarred table and three mismatched chairs. Along the back wall, a thin crack under an exterior door allowed fresh snow to drift inside.
The floorboards groaned underfoot as Cole crossed the room. “It’s got its own exit.” He swung open the door to the snow-covered night, but the storm had erased any hope of tracks. “Drustan wouldn’t have risked this exit,” he said. “He’d have taken her out some hidden way, where no one would have seen them.”
Nash pulled back a braided rug, revealing nothing but bare, splintered wood. “No trapdoor here.”
Cole swallowed hard, his gaze scanning the floor, the walls, everywhere. There had to be something. There had to be.
Kurtz’s voice touched his mind. Open up.
I hear you, Cole thought.
There’s something I’ve got to tell you, Kurtz voiced, and it can’t wait. Verdot is moving your father tomorrow morning. Looks like he’s going to sell him down Thusk’s trafficking river. If we’re going to break him out, it’s got to be tonight.
Cole’s heart dropped. “We’d have to go now,” he whispered.
Nash, still standing by the rug, glanced at him. “Go where?”
Cole clenched his jaw. “Nothing. Kurtz and I will search the floor in the tavern. Will you check the kitchen?”
