Blood Rights

She frowned. ‘That means they’ve kept the staff on at Algernon’s. I thought they’d have shut the house up.’

‘Do you know which direction or not?’ Dominic asked.

‘Chill, man. Let the girl do her thing.’ Doc flicked open his switchblade and began cleaning under his nails, carefully avoiding Mal’s direction since he’d obviously violated the temporary peace treaty.

Dominic muttered in Italian.

She ignored both of them and asked Mal, ‘Can you smell death from either direction? Algernon’s house should carry that odor. Tatiana’s … hopefully not.’

Mal inhaled. The sewer stank, but nothing like the exploded Nothos. Again he nodded. ‘I smell death.’ You should know.

‘In which direction?’

He hated his answer. ‘Both.’

Her face crumpled for a brief moment, then steeled. ‘Very well. I will have to guess – no, wait. Is the scent of comarré mixed with either one? Maybe more strongly than another?’

He pulled the air in, unraveling the layers of scent as if they were intertwined strands of thread. The honeyed perfume of comarré was strong in both, but only one tunnel carried the particularly sweet fragrance he’d come to know as Chrysabelle. The other carried an oddly familiar scent. Not completely unpleasant. It reminded him of something or someone from his past. The noise in his head ticked up. He sniffed again. The scent was familiar, but also different. Off. He ignored it for the moment. Chrysabelle needed him to get this right.

‘There.’ He pointed to the left. ‘That way carries your scent.’

She offered him a sliver of a smile before shifting her gaze to the other tunnel. ‘Then we go right.’

Mal stepped in behind her but grabbed Doc’s arm. ‘Keep it civil with Dominic. I mean it.’

Doc flipped the switchblade closed and tucked it away. ‘Noted.’

She turned to face them all. ‘From here on in, no talking. If you can hear them, they can hear you. Understood?’

Apparently satisfied with their nods, Chrysabelle walked up to the locked gate and stood very still in front of it. A moment later, a small snick signaled the gate had unlocked. She pushed it open, stepped over the raised threshold and headed into the tunnel. Mal stayed close to her, with Dominic and Doc keeping some distance from each other.

‘How did you unlock that?’ he whispered.

She just shook her head and kept her silence. Another comarré secret?

As the minutes ticked by, the path descended lower and lower and the tunnel narrowed. Water rushed by. The solars disappeared, replaced by gently pulsing phosphorescence that reminded Mal of the hallways that led to the Pits at Seven. The subtle sounds of occupation strengthened deeper in, and the soft voices of servants penetrated the thick barrier of stone between them and the residence. A few times, Chrysabelle’s eyes shifted upward. Could she hear them? Or was she thinking of her aunt and what the next few hours might bring?

At last, when they were somewhere in the dark underbelly of Corvinestri, they came to a four-way split. The path directly across from them led into a small, dark room. Chrysabelle motioned them in.

The empty space was carved from the surrounding rock and still bore the marks of whatever tools had hewn it. Moisture seeped from the walls. Nothing denoted the room as anything special and, more interesting, there was no way out except the way they’d come in. He glanced up. Nothing on the ceiling either. Judging by the look of frustration on Dominic’s face, he’d figured that out too. If this was the way into Tatiana’s estate, they were going to need dynamite, shovels, or magic. He held his hands out to Chrysabelle in question.

Exasperation thinned Chrysabelle’s mouth. She splayed her fingers, pushing her palm toward the floor. Mal nodded. She wanted them to wait, be patient. He could do that. He’d waited this long to exact his revenge on the nobles who’d cursed him, he could wait a little longer.

She positioned herself in front of the back wall and off to one side.

He tried not to stare, but even in the gloom, she shimmered with the soft glow only a comarré could produce. Her braid bared the sides of her face, revealing the delicate gold lacework tattooed there, and despite the twinkling silver body armor covering her neck, the ache in his gums made him bite down until his fangs jutted into his lower lip. Not the time. Always the time.

She pushed up her tunic sleeves to roll the silver mesh back past her elbows, exposing her signum, then bending her arms, she locked them together vertically in front of her face like a shield, fists facing inward, the flats of her forearms facing the wall. She closed her eyes and mouthed words. He couldn’t see her lips, but it seemed like she was praying.

Dominic sighed. Mal glared at him. If he didn’t shut up, Mal would give him a bloody reason to. He turned back in time to see the wall shimmer in front of Chrysabelle. She opened her eyes as it wavered for another second then melted away to reveal a doorway into an extensive wine cellar. Weak light spilled into the space.

The cellar held more than wine bottles.

Near the back of the room, amid the racks and oak casks, another older comarré limped toward them. Her clothes were dirty and torn, her face bruised and bloodied, her weapons raised in a fighting stance. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open as she took in the group of them.

Dominic rushed forward. ‘Marissa!’

‘Holy mother,’ Chrysabelle whispered, reaching for the wall. ‘You can walk?’