Windwitch (The Witchlands #2)v(48)

“S’nothing, sir.” She sidled away, and before Merik could follow, her shadow returned. This time, with a ceramic jar. “The salve, sir. For your face … and everywhere else too.”

“You first.” He pushed to his feet.

She thrust out her jaw. “I said it’s nothing, sir. Just got cornered by the wrong sort near Pin’s Keep. You, meanwhile, were only Noden knows where getting your face pummeled by only Noden knows who, so that you could then leap into a canal and almost drown. I reckon if anyone’s owed a story here, it’s me.”

Merik hesitated, his fists tightening. Knuckles cracking. “Who cornered you?”

“You first,” she countered.

Merik made the mistake of meeting Cam’s eyes, where there was no missing the sharp stubbornness that burned within—one he knew well from a different friend. A different lifetime.

Merik sighed and plunked himself into his chair. “Sit,” he ordered. Cam sat. Merik downed the water she’d brought in two gulps and finally said, “What happened, Cam, was that I got caught because I’m a blighted fool. But Stix … that is to say, First Mate Sotar let me go once she realized I was the Fury.”

Cam shivered and hugged her arms to her chest. The bruises were hidden in that position. “But you’re not really the Fury, sir. If anything, you’re a ghost who should be dead a hundred times over.”

“The Hagfishes can have me,” Merik murmured, staring into the empty cup, “if they’ll release Kullen or Safiya or … any number of souls better than me.”

“You might feel that way,” Cam murmured, “but no one else does.”

Merik knocked at the table, at the map—anything to change the subject. “I found this on my sister’s desk at Pin’s Keep.”

“The Cisterns.” Cam’s tone was matter-of-fact, and if she noticed Merik’s discomfort, there was no sign of it. Instead, she leaned over to tap the X. “What’s this, though?”

“I was hoping you might know. Didn’t you say you once used the Cisterns to travel the city?”

“Hye.” Her face scrunched up, lips puckering to one side. “I dunno that place precisely, but I know vaguely where it is. This here”—she pointed to a wide tunnel that ran half the length of the map—“runs below White Street. We call it Shite Street ’cos it’s where all the city’s sewage collects.”

“And these times?” Merik circled his finger around the list.

Instantly flags of scarlet raced up Cam’s cheeks, splotching across the paler marks. “I know my numbers, sir, but I can’t read them.”

“Ah.” Merik was struck by an embarrassed blush of his own. Of course most of his crew couldn’t read. He’d forgotten it was a luxury he’d earned by simply being born into the right family.

“Well, there are six times listed,” he said, “starting at half past the tenth chime and moving up in increments of half an hour.”

“Oh hye, sir.” A relieved smile. “That must be when the floods rush through. The tunnels bring water down from the river, see? Most of it goes into the city for plumbing and all that, but some goes down to Shite Street. It rushes through, picks up the sewage, and then flushes it back out again.

“It’s cleaned in a big reservoir below the Southern Wharf, and then dumped back into the river south of the city. The floods run often on Shite Street, as you might guess, which is another reason people avoid it. But maybe,” she said, drawling out the word, “there’s a meeting going on. It happens all the time in other tunnels. The gangs are always gatherin’ or fightin’ or tradin’ in any passages that the Royal Forces never enter.”

“So my sister must be meeting someone at half past twelve.” Merik smiled, if tiredly. “Well done, boy.”

A visible gulp slid down Cam’s long throat. She hastily ripped off another chunk of bread. “Breakfast?”

“Hmmm.” Merik accepted a piece, before saying, “Now it’s your turn, Cam. Tell me what happened.

“S’just one of the Skulks gangs.” She chomped on the bread. Crumbs stuck to her lips, and through a full mouth she added, “I didn’t know they’d expanded their territory, and I walked where I shouldn’t’ve been walking. So, I went back to Pin’s Keep, and they patched me up. Gave me that salve to use.”

Merik tried to nod calmly—tried to hide the sudden fire now chasing through his veins. “What gang was it, Cam?”

“One you wouldn’t know.” More bread, more chewing, more stubborn resistance.

So Merik stopped pressing. For now. “They know you well at Pin’s Keep?”

“Sure.” She bounced a shoulder. “I used to visit before I enlisted, sir. When the streets or the Cisterns got too dangerous to sleep in … Well, Pin’s Keep is where I always ended up.”

At those words, the Cisterns got too dangerous to sleep in, the heat in Merik’s blood pumped hotter. “You … slept in the Cisterns?”

Cam shrugged helplessly. “Hye, sir. It’s shelter, ain’t it? And you can live down there once you know the flood cycles.”

“How many people live there?”

Hesitantly, as if realizing Merik wasn’t going to bring up the gang again, Cam relaxed. Her posture regained its usual slouch while she tore into more bread. “Thousands, maybe?”