Vesper and I turn to him, equally startled. From what I know, Stavros grew up here, was born and raised in the streets of thekingdom’s capital, Crestfall. He is just a human—albeit, a very large, very wide, very explosive sort. At our shocked expressions, he grins at us and winks.
The reaction is so unexpected, sodelightful, that I can’t help snorting. Vesper does too. At the sound of it, Eos cackles, and soon all three of our voices rise together in laughter, colliding with the mural and echoing throughout the empty chamber. Only then do I realize just how tense our bodies have grown, how debilitating our own fear in the shadow of Mortem.This place is bad, Stavros had said, and he couldn’t have been more right.
At least they’re here with me.The thought strikes unbidden, and when Eos reaches for us in the next moment—bothof us, falling against her sister’s side and wiping happy tears on the frayed edge of my sleeve—warmth bubbles inside me. Somewhat uncomfortable and certainly unfamiliar, but… nice.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out. “I should have tried harder to grab the key. I almost fucked us over.”
I don’t know why I say it, but maybe it’s because Vesper was smiling at me. Or maybe it’s becausesomeonesmiled at me. No one ever smiles at me.
Vesper shrugs at my admission, as if she’s suddenly unbothered and unworried. “None of us wanted to try infiltrating the palace. You stepped up. It didn’t work. But we still made it down here.”
“We keep moving,” Eos agrees.
“Always moving,” Stavros echoes.
“Okay,” I say.
Another grin. From her, from Eos, from Stavros. Almost as if, in this moment, we’re more than a crew. We’re a family.
Until we aren’t.
The moment ends faster than it began. Vesper clears her throat and steps away. Stavros lights a second and third match. Eos straightens, brushing off her wispy blue cloak before darting ahead to continue our search. Somewhere in this goddess-forsaken crypt is a fresh tomb filled with the bodies of revelers probably still wearing their elaborate masks, and the sooner we find it, the sooner we can leave.
That doesn’t stop us from seizing opportunity along the way, ofcourse. The farther we creep into the chamber, the more gold sparkles in the light of Stavros’s match. We skirt around plinths and pedestals as we search, swiping gold coins, incense, and gemstones—all offers to Mortem from the dearly departed. I empty a dish of taffies into the belt on my waist. Stavros picks up a silver chalice and shoves it into his pocket. A decent haul, but nothing like what will be on the bodies themselves. My hands clench and unclench, knuckles cracking with severe longing.So close now. So fucking close.
“Time?” Vesper asks Stavros.
“Seven,” he says shortly. “Six if we’re unlucky.”
“We usually are,” Vesper mutters.
As we near the eastern wall, the earthy scent of fresh mortar rises. “Found it,” Eos says, scraping a finger through the thick sludge. She turns to smile at us, a pile of hastily stacked limestone bricks behind her. Still wet. Still fresh.
“We should be able to disassemble it. No one will notice until the next noble dies, and by then we’ll be far, far away,” I say.
“Paradise,” Vesper says. “Stavros, can you start—”
He doesn’t need her to finish the thought. Storming up to the wall, he punches a heavy fist at the middlemost brick, and it instantly explodes through the other side. Then he reaches a large hand into the new hole and begins to rip away the remaining bricks. In thirty seconds, he’s decimated enough that Eos can slide through. In another thirty seconds, he’s wrecked a quarter of the wall.
“Ladies first,” he announces with a broad sweep of his arms. He bows and wiggles his brows, beckoning Vesper and me forward.
Just as always, when I move, he slides in front of me. “I saidladies,” he declares, allowing Vesper a head start.
I glower at him, ignoring that spark of hurt in my chest. Because it isn’t hurt. It’sirritation, and whatever moment we might’ve shared earlier was clearly a figment of my imagination. “Jokes aren’t funny if you repeat them twenty times.”
Stavros shakes his head as his matches burns out. Plunging us back into fetid darkness. He chuckles as he searches his pack for another match. “That joke is timeless. Ask Vesper. She always laughs at it.”
Though my breathing hitches, I force it to steady once more. I force my hands into fists to stop them from reaching out for someone, anyone, to anchor myself in the darkness. “She would laugh at cabbage if you threw it at my head.”
“And I wonder why,” Vesper calls as she ducks into the burial chamber. “Probably has nothing to do with the two ruby necklaces you lost us last week,orthe day we had to flee into the sewers. It took weeks to wash away the stench—not that you’d know. You turned tail and left us the instant things got dicey.”
Ignoringthat, I flash a determined grin and creep into the tomb behind her. It feels even darker in here, somehow. The silence absolute. To keep from begging Stavros to hurry up with that match, I say jovially, “You know what? I think you like me, Vesper. You like me so much that it’s easier to hate me. You’re a farmer’s daughter afraid to name the baby pig.”
“In this scenario, you would be the pig?” Her arm brushes mine as Stavros mutters a curse, still grappling with his pack. “In that case, sure.”
“You like me.”
“I tolerate you.”
