“It’s the Tinman. He’s in the tunnel.”
THIRTY-SIX
Tinman
There’s darkness in the tunnel, but at the bottom, just below the ladder…
… fresh footprints. Two sets, human.
I shut the torch off and straighten. Cleo is beside me, Faos in front of me. His soldiers are fanned out just beyond the shed.
To Faos I say, “Fly over the wall. Spread out. If they’re out of the tunnel, they won’t be far off.”
He nods and disappears outside.
To Cleo I say, “Stay here.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s close quarters down there and last time I slunk into the dark after this stupid girl, I was stabbed.”
She scowls at me, crosses her arms over her chest. “You brought me all this way to leave me here at the end? What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care.”
“I’m not staying.”
For a girl who was afraid of her own voice, she sure has a hell of a lot to say now.
“Suit yourself.”
I climb down the ladder and flick on the torch again. Saturated orange light fills the darkness.
The tunnel is just tall enough for me to stand upright,barely wide enough to spread out my arms. I’m not claustrophobic, but it’s hard not to feel buried alive down here.
Cleo scrambles down the ladder behind me and hits the dirt with anumph. In the tunnel, she looks just as small as she is. She can barely reach the ceiling.
We start forward. The tunnel curves slightly ten feet ahead so I can’t see to the other end. If it goes below the wall and out the other side, it can’t be a long tunnel. There would be very little use for it to keep going beyond the wall.
“You won’t hurt her, will you?” Cleo’s voice rises up out of the dark.
“She’s supposed to be delivered alive. Witch’s orders.”
Her breath of relief is unmistakable behind me. I would just as soon Dorothy be dead, but I do what I’m paid to do. The man she’s with, whoever he is, won’t fare so well. He’s dead on sight.
We reach the curve in the tunnel and I slow, gesturing behind me to stop Cleo too.
I peek around the bend and find only darkness beyond. I suspect they’re out if they were here at all.
“What will you do once you’ve delivered Dorothy to the witch?”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
Truthfully, I haven’t. I’ve been trying to release Gabriel for so long it’s practically consumed my every waking moment. That and avoiding our other brother, and our mother, at all costs. Because if I came face-to-face with either of them, I would be confronted with the question of whether or not I had the courage to kill them.
I am who I am today because of the two of them.
They deserve to die by a thousand whacks of my blade.
