The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl from Everywhere #2)(38)

“What do you mean?”

“Well.” Continuing forward, he tucked the pen behind his ear. “You might wish away our meeting, but that might have been the one good thing that came out of this—at least for me. You might wish away the robbery—but then you wish away the history as it was written. Would you risk ending the world to do the right thing?”

I made a face. “I wish I could say yes.”

He turned his head, his face lost in shadow. “You might wish many things, but that doesn’t mean they’ll come true. This doesn’t seem like that sort of fairy tale.”

I bridled. “Would you do it? Would you really risk the end of the world just to keep your hands from getting dirty?”

“Depends on the dirt,” he said pointedly. “Blood is harder to scrub clean. Would you kill an innocent if history dictated you must?”

“I’m not going to be drawn into a textbook ethics debate designed to . . .” My voice trailed off as a low rumble hummed in the air. We both stopped in our tracks. “What was that?”

Blake lifted his torch. Farther down the main path . . . was that the glimmer of bronze? I took a step closer, then another, as the rumbling sound came again. Squinting into the dark, I peered down the tunnel; it ended in a huge metal plate. No, not a plate. A door.

“It looks like the sea gates,” Blake said, staring up at the wall of bronze. Then he knelt, dragging his fingers through the wet sand. “What time is it?”

Dread seized me as I took his meaning: this was a sewer, and the sand was damp. The tides changed every six and a quarter hours; low tide would come around eleven this morning. But the gate would open before low tide, so the water could fill the tunnel, then drain away.

How long had we been exploring?

I grabbed his hand and yanked him back up the passageway as another low rumble shook the earth.

“Up to the ledge!” We sped away from the doors as they began to roll open. Behind us, water burst through the widening gap and crashed onto the sand.

A gust of air made our torchlight flicker. The sea poured in faster than we could run; we splashed down the closest tunnel as the icy tide swept over our feet. Blake threw his torch onto the ledge and vaulted up; turning back, he reached for me, but I was already up beside him.

Still the water rose, rolling toward us and cresting in a wave. Together, we ran toward the archway; through it, stairs led up from the ledge. Blake took them two at a time; I was right behind him as the water roared through the tunnel, lapping at our heels. The stairway ended in a thick door. I pressed my back against it, but the water did not climb past the middle of the steps.

Breathing hard, we stared at the swirling black tide at our feet. Our torches licked the bricks at the top of the alcove, not much taller than the door. Blake leaned down to tug off one of his boots, pouring out the water. “Always an adventure with you, Miss Song.”

I wrung saltwater out of the hem of my cloak. “I thought you loved adventure.”

“Oh, I do.” He shoved his foot back into his boot. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous.”

I swallowed, looking down at my feet. Inches away from my toes, the water glimmered darkly on the stair. “No argument there.”

How long till the tide dropped and the water drained? It wouldn’t be more than a few hours, but with the torches burning so high, we risked running out of oxygen before the water cleared the tunnel. Putting out the flames was an option, but I didn’t relish waiting for hours in the pitch black. The door at my back was silvered with age and crusted with salt; there was no sign it had been opened in quite some time. When I tried the handle, the rusting iron crumbled in my hands, and the door wouldn’t budge. I glared at the keyhole. “I wish Kash were here.”

“Hmm.” Blake frowned, inspecting the latch. “Iron? In sea air? Hold my torch.”

I stepped back as far as I dared, the heat from both flames playing along my arms. “Do you pick locks too?” I asked, but he shook his head.

“No, Miss Song.” Then he drove his shoulder into the door near the hinges—once, twice—and they disintegrated into flakes and powder. With a roar, Blake pushed, and the door scraped over the stones, giving us an opening large enough to slip through. Panting, he took his torch back from me. “I do not.”

The echo of his shout still rang in the alcove. A thrill went through me as I thrust my own torch into the room—excitement or fear? Would there be monsters . . . witches . . . devils? But the light played over barrels and buckets and spades tumbled together in the dust, and my heart slowed. “Storage.”

He shrugged, then he winced, rubbing his shoulder. “We might still be able to find the pit. It was somewhere near the tunnels.”

“Do you think that’s wise?”

Blake gave me a look. “I thought you loved adventure.”

A smile flickered on my lips as I wound my way through crates and boxes and piles of bricks. The room opened into a series of vaulted galleries, a cellar with pillars and arches at regular intervals. Tucked into corners were stacks of casks and dusty bottles, and farther down, neat rows of bones.

Nothing moved; everything was quiet. The air was cold and still, and the dust was thick as carpet. And yet . . . I slowed and leaned down, peering more closely at the stones. “Look. Scuff marks.”

“Footprints. Several pairs—or one person coming and going.” He gave me a wry look. “Do monsters wear boots?”