Stolen Songbird (The Malediction Trilogy, #1)(63)

Walking back took hours and, within the first hour, all I wanted to do was lie down and sleep. And I wasn’t even carrying anything. Through a combination of physical strength and magic, Zoé and the other miners pushed the rock-filled trolleys back through the tunnels. With the exception of a few muttered oaths, the only sounds they made were grunts of effort and panting breaths. It was no small amount of relief when we could finally hear the ruckus of miners loading rock into crates at the lift.

I helped the best I could with the unloading – more because I didn’t want the other gangs to notice us than because I was any help. We were next to ride up when Tips hissed, “Guild members!” Everyone dropped their heads, shoulders slumping. I mimicked their posture and tried to conceal myself behind the other miners.

Two of the guild members got on the lift with the group ahead of us, but one remained behind. He leaned against the far wall, eyes closed and face slack with weariness as we waited for the lift to come back down. I could feel the tension in each member of Tips’s gang as we set to loading the lift, and it only escalated when the troll got on board with us.

“Cave-in?” Tips asked as the lift began to rise, moving much more slowly than when it had brought us down.

“Yes,” the troll replied. “Finn’s gang was working the south tunnel and brought the whole thing down. The one we’d closed over concerns about stability,” he added pointedly.

“Survivors?”

“None.” The troll scrubbed a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “No idea what the blasted fools were doing down that way.”

“Heard they were looking short on quota,” Tips replied, tone neutral. “That tunnel was known to be rich pickings.”

The guild member straightened and glared at Tips. “And now Finn and all his gang are dead because they couldn’t accept the loss of one.”

“Easy for you to say,” Tips muttered.

All murmurs of conversation ceased. It was fair to say none of us even breathed as we watched to see what would happen. The troll’s uniform rustled as he straightened his shoulders, then in a flash, he shoved Tips hard against a stack of crates and the whole platform rocked. “Easy for me to say? I just spent the past four hours digging up fifty yards’ worth of tunnel to find only blood and unrecognizable raw meat!”

The two of them were practically on top of me. I tried to squeeze away, but there was no room. The troll had Tips by the shoulders, but he didn’t seem to be hurting him. I felt the tremble of his arm where it rested against me and realized that the guild member was genuinely upset about the death of the miners. “Half you miserable lot don’t have the power to keep the dust off your heads and you insist on going into tunnels a bloody Montigny would avoid. And when the rocks come down, I have to dig you out.”

“So don’t,” Tips said. “It’s not as though you care whether we live or die.”

Several of the gang members groaned in dismay, but Tips showed no sign of backing down. “Just be careful you don’t kill us all, or you lot might find yourselves having to do an honest day’s work.”

“Stupid half-breed!” The troll punched him in the face and I winced at the sound of cracking bone. “Every time those tunnels cave, I will dig out your miserable hide, even if there isn’t enough left to fill a bucket. That’s a promise.”

My skin prickled with the charge of magic, and several of the miners gasped aloud in surprise at a troll uttering those binding words. As I tried to struggle away from the two, the troll looked up and our eyes met. His widened in shock. My chest rose and fell in short little jerks as I waited for him to react to my presence. I was caught. He was sure to turn me in and I couldn’t even begin to think of an explanation for what I was doing down here. He opened his mouth to speak, and I held my breath.

“They aren’t my laws,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “But I have to live by them too.”

My head jerked up and down in understanding. The half-bloods were not the only malcontents in Trollus. I wondered how many more full-bloods were secret sympathizers and whether Tristan knew about them. Or whether they knew about him?

The lift lurched to a halt, and the guild member clambered off Tips and hurried through the crowd. Stunned, the gang and I set to unloading our crates and taking the gold down to where it would be sorted. All I could do was pray that the guild member wouldn’t tell anyone he’d seen me in the mines, because if he did, I would have some serious explaining to do.





CHAPTER 19





CéCILE





For days after my visit to the mines I laid low, afraid that the Miners’ Guild member would reveal my little excursion and that word would get back to the King. Before sneaking out of the palace to go to the mines, I hadn’t been too concerned about getting caught, because how bad could the ramifications be? Just more guards, or better ones at any rate. Sneaking me in and out of the palace had been surprisingly easy. Restrictions on my freedom? That was certainly possible, but not the end of the world. But now that I’d had time to think about it and stew in a pot of worry, I realized that while getting caught might not hurt me, it would hurt those with whom I’d gotten involved.



Tristan had explained the half-bloods’ situation, but I hadn’t really understood until I’d spent a night in their shoes. It was Tips and his gang who had made me feel just how little those in power valued the lives of the half-bloods, and how one small transgression could cost them their lives – lives that were already at risk every time they stepped into the mines. I realized how much they were risking by even considering a rebellion, and what failure would cost them. And knowing what I did now, being able to close my eyes and remember faces and names… it made me willing to risk my own life to help them. But to help, I needed to know more.