“The train station? Going for a trip into the country, are we? A romantic getaway?”
Silas smiled. “Not quite. Come now.”
Silas led her across the street and toward the train station. They took a left at the door, however, instead moving down a side alley. A construction site waited for them, roped off, covered in warning signs. Silas looked over his shoulder and ducked under the rope. Then he lifted it for her and extended a hand.
“What are you doing? It must be dangerous or it wouldn’t be roped off.”
“If you wanted safety, you could have stayed locked in your room. Are you coming?”
Elswyth ducked down, following him. They maneuvered through a series of scaffolds until they came to what appeared to be a hole in the ground. A single ladder led into the darkness below. Silas began to climb down it.
“Where are we going?” Elswyth asked.
“On an adventure. Come on,” he said.
“I cannot climb a ladder in a gown! Not when you are beneath me,” she said. She tapped her foot expectantly.
Silas paused on the ladder. “On my honor, my lady, I wouldn’t dream of looking anywhere inappropriate. And if it is any consolation, I already saw your knickers this morning.”
Elswyth scoffed, folding her arms.
Silas rolled his eyes and shrugged—an eminently charming gesture. “My lady, I have traveled the world three times over. I have been in the dancing harems of sultans and among tribes where the women wear no clothes at all. I have seen more interesting things in my day than a pair of bloomers. Really, Elswyth, if you want to be a scholar, you will eventually find yourself in the field. How will you traverse a rainforest if you can’t even climb down a ladder?”
He extended a hand to her, waiting expectantly. She sighed and then took it. “Fine, but after this, I want to seeyourknickers.”
“All you had to do was ask,” Silas said. Even with him beneath her, she could hear the smile in his voice. She lifted her skirts and began climbing down the ladder after him.
Elswyth climbed until her foot found the dirt. She steadied herself, trying to assess her surroundings. In the meager light, it looked like a long tunnel, stretching in either direction as far as she could see.
“Silas… where are we?”
At that moment, a small light appeared in front of her. It quickly illuminated the room, and Silas with it. He held a slender elderwood branch, carved into the shape of a wand.
“What? Not all of us can fabricate elderwood on our own. It’s remarkably difficult, you know, for us casual floromancers.”
Elswyth inspected the wand and then raised her hand, sprouting an identical stalk of elderwood from the veins in her wrist. With a little vitæ, it glowed even more brightly than Silas’s.
He sighed. “And now who is cocky, Miss Elderwood?”
She smiled. “You did ask for a floromancer. I don’t suppose I am here to be a glorified lantern, am I?”
“Oh, but you are bright,” Silas said. “Our task lies this way. Come.”
He set off down the tunnel, and Elswyth followed, pouring vitæ into her elderwood wand. The walls around her were rough-hewn dirt and paving stone. Tools littered the ground, left from the day’s work. “What is all of this?”
“Haven’t you heard? The city is planning on putting trains beneath the ground. It’s been in the works for years now.”
“Trains beneath the city? To where?”
Silas led her deeper into the tunnel as the walls grew rougher and the ground more crooked. Rats scurried in the shadows. He shrugged. “Anywhere. Everywhere. It’s going to replace omnibuses one day; you’ll be able to take a train from Mayfair to Spitalfields. Soon, the whole city will run on iron and coal, and trains will run like veins of metal beneath the skin of the earth. Ah. Here we are.”
Silas stopped, raising his elderwood wand. To their left, a second tunnel branched off from the first. This one was smaller, older. The walls were made of cobblestone, and the floor was compacted dirt. Water dripped from the ceiling into foul-smelling puddles.
“Of course, there were some unintended consequences. Old tunnels that were discovered, going all the way back to the Romans, and to the Celts before them.”
Elswyth lifted the hem of her dress, hurrying after Silas. The tunnel around her was indeed ancient. It smelled of cold water and musty rot, of dirt and stone and shadow. “And how did you learn about this, Silas?”
“The city government invited me, naturally,” he said. “They needed an archaeologist to examine the tunnels, determine what was worth preserving. And that…”
