the skies was that?”
“It felt like a land tremor.” Elias takes a step away from the wall and eyes the ceiling. “Except Serra doesn’t have land tremors.”
We cut through the catacombs with new urgency. With every step I expect to hear another patrol, to see torches in the distance.
When Elias stops, it is so sudden that I barrel into his broad back. We’ve entered a circular burial chamber with a low, domed ceiling. Two tunnels branch out ahead of us. Torches flicker in one, almost too far away to make out. Crypts pock the chamber walls, each guarded by a stone statue of an armored man. Beneath their helmets, skulls glare out at us. I shiver, stepping closer to Elias.
But he does not look at the crypts, or the tunnels, or the distant torches.
He stares at the little girl in the center of the chamber.
She wears tattered clothing and her hand is pressed to a leaking wound in her side. Her fine features mark her as a Scholar, but when I try to see her eyes, she drops her head, dark hair falling into her face. Poor thing. Tears mark a path down her dirt-streaked cheeks.
“Ten hells, it’s getting crowded down here,” Elias mutters. He takes a step toward the girl, hands out, as if dealing with a scared animal. “You shouldn’t be here, love.” His voice is gentle. “Are you alone?”
She lets out a tiny sob. “Help me,” she whispers.
“Let me see that cut. I can bandage it.” Elias drops to one knee so he’s at her level, the way my grandfather did with his youngest patients. She shies away from him and looks toward me.
I step forward, my instincts urging caution. The girl watches. “Can you tell me your name, little one?” I ask.
“Help me,” she repeats. Something about the way she avoids my eyes makes my skin prickle. But then, she’s been ill-treated—likely by the Empire—and now she faces a Martial who is armed to the roots of his hair. She must be terrified.
The girl inches back, and I glance at the torch-lit tunnel. Torches mean we’re in Empire territory. It’s only a matter of time before soldiers happen by.
“Elias.” I nod at the torches. “We do not have time. The soldiers—”
“We can’t just leave her.” His guilt is plain as day. The deaths of his friends days ago in the Third Trial weigh on him; he doesn’t wish to cause another. And we will, if we leave the girl here alone to die of her wounds.
“Do you have family in the city?” Elias asks her. “Do you need—”
“Silver.” She tilts her head. “I need silver.”
Elias’s eyebrows shoot up. I cannot blame him. It is not what I expected either.
“Silver?” I say. “We don’t—”
“Silver.” She shuffles sideways like a crab. I think I see the too-quick flash of an eye through her limp hair. Strange. “Coins. A weapon. Jewelry.”
She glances at my neck, my ears, my wrists. With that look, she gives herself away.
I stare at the tar-black orbs where her eyes should be, and scrabble for my dagger. But Elias is already in front of me, scims glimmering in his hands.
“Back away,” he snarls at the girl, every inch a Mask.
“Help me.” The girl lets her hair fall into her face once more and puts her hands behind her back, a twisted caricature of a wheedling child. “Help.”
At my clear disgust, her lips curl in a sneer that looks obscene on her otherwise sweet face. She growls—the guttural sound I heard earlier. This is what I sensed watching us. This is the presence I felt in the tunnels.
“I know you have silver.” A rabid hunger underlies the creature’s little-girl voice. “Give it to me. I need it.”
“Get away from us,” Elias says. “Before I take off your head.”
The girl—or whatever it is—ignores Elias and fixes her eyes on me. “You don’t need it, little human. I’ll give you something in return. Something wonderful.”
“What are you?” I whisper.
She whips her arms out, her hands gleaming with a strange viridescence. Elias flies toward her, but she evades him and fastens her fingers on my wrist. I scream, and my arm glows for less than a second before she is flung backward, howling, clutching her hand as if it is on fire. Elias pulls me to my feet from the dirt where I am sprawled, pitching a dagger at the girl at the same time. She dodges it, still shrieking.
“Tricky girl!” She darts away as Elias lunges for her again, her eyes only for me. “Sly one! You ask what am I, but what are you?”
Elias swings at her, sliding one of his scims across her neck. He’s not fast enough.
“Murderer!” She whirls on him. “Killer! Death himself! Reaper walking! If your sins were blood, child, you would drown in a river of your own making.”
Elias reels back, shock etched into his eyes. Light flickers in the tunnel. Three torches bob swiftly toward us.
“Soldiers coming.” The creature whirls to face me. “I’ll kill them for you, honey-eyed girl. Lay their throats open. I already led away the others following you, back in the tunnel. I’ll do it again. If you give me your silver. He wants it. He’ll reward us if we bring it to him.”
Who in the skies is he? I don’t ask, only bring up my dagger in response.
“Stupid human!” The girl clenches her fists. “He’ll get it from you. He’ll find a way.” She turns toward the tunnel. “Elias Veturius!” I flinch. Her scream is so loud they probably heard her in Antium. “Elias Vetu—”
Her words die as Elias’s scim rips through her heart. “Efrit efrit of the cave,” he says. Her body slides off the weapon and lands with a solid thump, like a boulder falling. “Likes the dark but fears the blade.”
“Old rhyme.” He sheathes his scim. “Never realized how handy it was until recently.”
Elias grabs my hand, and we bolt into the unlit tunnel. Maybe through some miracle, the soldiers didn’t hear the girl. Maybe they didn’t see us. Maybe, maybe—
No such luck. I hear a shout and the thunder of bootsteps behind us.
Three auxes and four legionnaires, fifteen yards behind us. As I race ahead, I whip my head around to gauge their progress. Make that six auxes, five legionnaires, and twelve yards.
More of the Empire’s soldiers will pour into the catacombs with every second that passes. By now, a runner has carried
