“Nothing that will stop me,” I said truthfully.
Harden led us through the dark, not deftly by any means, but successfully. The sounds of continued conflict echoed through the passages, along with distant, ground-shaking booms. But we were alone, surrounded by our own footsteps and ragged breaths.
Every moment, I expected Wake to reappear. Every second he did not ratcheted up my anxiety, until I would have set the whole catacombs ablaze just to scatter the shadows.
When the red rock of the old substructure dominated, Harden released Lewis and motioned to a slim hole in the wall. It was flush to the floor and no more than a foot high. It had been covered by a grating, evidenced by the iron mesh set off to one side. But now it yawned open, and the sound of running water came to us. Running water and distant, distorted voices.
“Just my people,” Harden explained. “The water isn’t deep.”
“Go first,” I urged. “So none of them shoot us.”
Harden hesitated, then nodded. He lowered himself down and dropped through the gap. Lewis cast me a glance, as if heintended to force me to go next, but refrained. More slowly and painstakingly, he copied Harden and vanished.
For a breath I was alone in the passageway, with its shadows and eerie echoes. I checked the pockets of my stolen coat, ensuring the relics were secure, then shimmied after the men.
I dropped down a bare four feet. The tunnel was startlingly low, and Harden and Lewis were bent near in half. Still, my relief at being out of the passageway, on the way to escaping the citadel, left me half-delirious with relief.
Both of them reached hands for me, at the same time, and I cracked a smile. “Gentlemen,” I chided. “I cannot hold both your hands.”
Harden grinned back at me.
Lewis gave a huff. “I still cannot see a thing.”
“I can hold your hand, too,” Harden offered him coyly.
“You may have to carry me by end of this.”
I slipped my hand into Lewis’s. Harden set off, and Lewis and I followed carefully behind.
Voices reverberated eerily off the walls. Their hushed, susurrating nature only increased the strangeness, filling the sloshing quiet with the rasping whispers of spirits and ghouls and Moonless monsters.
Soon, we encountered a knot of Separatists. By the time the tunnel broadened and we could stand, we trailed twenty other escapees.
“We are in the sewers,” Harden murmured. “Beneath the old city.”
We reached another grating, a massive blockage of thick iron bars. These had been filed down, a task that must have taken a great deal of time to do surreptitiously. We stepped through onto a narrow walkway of stone, clinging to the side of a canal. Distant light could be seen from both directions, and I realized that this was one of the areas where Old Harrow’s canals ran under the buildings.
We gathered in the shadow, just before the line of light. The other Separatists had gone the opposite direction after a murmured conference with Harden, streaming off anddissipating into the light. A distant boom welcomed them to the sunlight again, and somewhere off in the city a siren wailed.
Harden, Lewis, and I were alone again in the cool darkness.
Harden looked at me. “Your sister’s hotel is on the other side of the city. We’ll never make it safely, not with you hobbling, Lewis.”
Another explosion shook the ground, affirming his statement.
“So is The Three Trees,” I pointed out.
“There are other safehouses.”
“Yes, well. We can make our way alone, Harden, you have done enough for us.”
He shook his head emphatically. “Bullshit. I’ll see you safe.”
“We will not be safe until we leave the city,” Lewis put in. “Conflict in the streets is one thing. They will be looking for us, specifically.”
“I can get you out,” Harden said.
“All right, make the arrangements,” I conceded. “But I cannot abandon Pretoria and Perry.”
