“Is it just me,” Maldynado asked when they reached the round grate set into the canal wall, “or is that padlock much bigger and sturdier than it was last summer?”
“Possibly.” Amaranthe pulled out her lock-picking set, undaunted by the shiny steel.
“Someone must have heard about all the unsavory outlaws roaming the city’s sewers, pumping stations, and aqueduct tunnels.”
Amaranthe slid a tension wrench and ball pick into the slot and worked on the tumblers. “Did you just call yourself unsavory?”
“Well, I haven’t been able to frequent the public baths as much as I like of late.”
Voices drifted down from the street above. Just civilians passing by on their way home, Amaranthe hoped.
“Stand watch, please,” she murmured, aware of people walking by on the opposite side of the canal as well. This portion of the path wasn’t well lit, but she doubted the shadows were thick enough to hide her, should someone peer intently.
“Naturally.” Maldynado leaned against the wall.
The lock proved challenging, but Amaranthe thwarted it eventually. She opened the grate, frosty icicles snapping, iron squealing. Someone had supplied a fresh lock, but nobody had thought to oil the hinges? Or perhaps that had been intentional. Thus to alert nearby denizens—or warrior-caste journalists? As soon as Maldynado stepped inside, Amaranthe closed the grate and replaced the padlock on the bars, though she didn’t fasten it, in case they needed to exit that way in a hurry.
“You’re being paranoid, girl,” she muttered to herself.
Even if people on the other side knew her team had returned to the city, they wouldn’t know what they were doing in the city.
“What did you say?” Maldynado asked, as they strode up the slick tunnel.
“Nothing important.”
“Ah. I was hoping you’d been proclaiming that I was in fact quite savory, baths notwithstanding.”
“So long as Yara believes that, you’ll be fine.” Amaranthe turned into the passage that ran beneath the alley behind the Gazette building.
“How could she not?” Maldynado asked, a smile in his voice.
For a while during their travels, Maldynado had seemed glum, due to everyone being suspicious of his motives, but Yara had apparently relieved him of those dark feelings. Amaranthe wasn’t sure if that was entirely a good thing. He’d been… bubbly of late.
A scraping sound came from somewhere ahead of them. She halted, flinging her arm out to stop Maldynado as well. At first, she thought the noise had come from the tunnel, but a shadow moved, interrupting the flow of moonlight through drains in the alley above.
“Someone else may be visiting via the back door,” Maldynado murmured.
“We’ll see.” Amaranthe patted her way to a ladder leading to the manhole they’d used the last time they visited. She climbed it and tilted her ear toward the cover.
A rumble sounded above her. A steam vehicle driving down the alley? Amaranthe remembered a loading dock in the rear of the building, but would the Gazette be shipping newspapers or receiving supplies at night? She dropped back to the ground.
“Company, eh?” Maldynado asked.
“So it seems.” Using the wan light filtering through the drains as a guide, Amaranthe headed farther up the tunnel. Frozen runoff water made the ground slick, and she flailed several times, scraping her knuckles on the wall once and smacking Maldynado in the jaw another time.
“No need to take it out on me,” he said with a chuckle.
A minute later, he butt-planted on the ice behind her. After that, there were fewer chuckles.
Treacherous footing notwithstanding, they made it to the next ladder. Amaranthe climbed up, listened at the manhole, and didn’t hear anything. They ought to be in the same alley but several buildings down. She unfastened the lid and lifted it a couple of inches.
No less than four army lorries idled in front of the Gazette’s loading dock. Soldiers idled as well, smoking and talking as they leaned against the vehicles. A few more stood near the doors on the loading dock. The casual stances hinted of boredom rather than alertness, but numerous rifles leaned within easy reach, cartridge-based rifles loaded with multiple rounds. White armbands adorned the men’s arms. The drainpipe Amaranthe, Sicarius, and Maldynado had once climbed to gain access to an attic vent snaked up the side of the building in plain view.
She lowered the manhole cover and climbed down again. “I believe it’s time to enact Plan Two.”
“Go home and snuggle with an exciting and surprisingly randy woman?” Maldynado asked.
“That’s your Plan Two. Mine is to wait for Deret at his flat.”
“So your Plan Two is similar to mine, except it employs a man.”
Amaranthe lifted a fingernail to her mouth and nibbled thoughtfully. Going to Mancrest’s home was plausible, though, with all the Gazette-worthy news occurring in the city, he’d likely be home late. He might even be sleeping in his office here. Also, she wondered what all those soldiers were doing behind the Gazette building. Was it possible Ravido was inside, meeting with Mancrest? She hated to think of Deret schmoozing with Forge’s chosen figurehead, but Maldynado had said the Mancrests and the Marblecrests had always been close. If such a meeting was happening inside at that moment, a chance to listen in could prove pivotal. Besides, if Deret was working for the other side, he’d be less than truthful when she questioned him.
Maldynado cleared his throat. “I notice we’re not moving. Won’t that be required? To enact either of our Plan Twos?”
“The Gazette building is a few hundred years old,” Amaranthe mused, too far down the trail of her own thoughts to answer his questions. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it had a basement. What are the odds that there’s access somewhere down here? Or… if it’s been retrofitted with indoor plumbing…”
“You’re not thinking of entering through the sewer, are you?” Maldynado asked. “That’s not whining, by the way. It’s righteous indignation.”
“Let’s take a closer look at the tunnel walls by the building.” Amaranthe led the way back past the first ladder. “As I learned in my enforcer days, there are lots of forgotten underground passageways in the city, especially in the older parts of town.”
“To facilitate secret trysts with lovers?”
“Not exactly.” Once near the Gazette portion of the tunnel again, Amaranthe started searching by touch. “The brothels, drinking houses, and hotels used to have deals with the gangs. They’d get their patrons drunk and lure them into the basements where thugs would knock them out, tie them up, and drag them out through the tunnels, all the way to the docks. The victims would wake up chained to an oar bench on some freighter on its way to the Gulf.”
“Oh, right, I remember reading about that in school. I think there was a Lady Dourcrest book that used that as a plot device. Of course it was a woman who was kidnapped, and the pirate who owned the ship was roguishly handsome and—”
“Finding anything?” Amaranthe interrupted. She didn’t need the plot summary.
“Not yet, no.”
She grimaced when she encountered a moist, fuzzy growth too hearty to succumb to the frost. She wiped her hand and contemplated finding a lantern. Of course, if she saw the walls she’d feel compelled to scrape off the grimy patches, not simply avoid them. The soldiers might notice the light seeping through the storm drains and the sounds of her scouring the tunnel clean of decades of accumulated gunk.
“Didn’t most of those old passages get walled up?” Maldynado asked. “On account of… Wasn’t some emperor kidnapped?”
“Yes, Guffarth the Third. Apparently, he was visiting a brothel to—”
“Get his snake greased?”
“Er, yes. But he went anonymously and without much in the way of security, so his shrewish wife wouldn’t find out. He was kidnapped and nobody believed his claims of imperial greatness. He died from an infection while at sea. It wasn’t until a year later that an enforcer investigator pu
t the ore cart on the right rail and figured out what had happened to Guffarth. The freighter involved in the kidnapping was hunted down by the navy, and all the officers were put to death. It was surmised that such a mistake never would have been made if Guffarth’s face had been better known amongst the populace. After that, the mint started putting the emperor’s head on coins and ranmyas. And, yes, many of the tunnels were walled up, but some of them have been reopened by the gangs in recent decades. Kidnappings still go on, though the enforcers don’t look the other way anymore.”
Amaranthe’s probing fingers encountered a change in the texture of the wall stone. The cement had changed to brick.
“Thank you, Professor,” Maldynado said. “That was a story worthy of Books.”
“Sh, over here.”
When his shoulder bumped into hers, Amaranthe grabbed his hand and put it on the wall. She spent a few seconds following the crease where brick turned to cement. It definitely felt like a doorway—or rather a doorway that had been bricked over.
“There may have been a tunnel here, but it’s not accessible now,” Maldynado said, echoing her thoughts.
Amaranthe sighed. “We might have to try your idea about sneaking in the front after all.”
A number of slams and clangs sounded in the alley above.
“Maybe not,” Maldynado said. “Sounds like those blokes are leaving.”
That would make getting in easier, but it’d also mean the theoretical meeting she wished to spy on had ended. A few more slams sounded, followed by the heavy rumble of lorries rolling away.
A fresh slash of moonlight flowed into the tunnel. Maldynado had already climbed the ladder and pushed up the manhole. Amaranthe was of a mind to chastise him for being too hasty—they should have jogged back up to the other manhole to check in case anyone remained on the loading dock.
“All clear,” Maldynado said before she could phrase an appropriate chastisement. “Someone’s still inside too. I saw a bit of light as the back door was closing.”
“Coming.” Amaranthe climbed up after him.
Maldynado reached the loading dock first and, after eyeing the drainpipe for a moment, put a hand on the doorknob. He paused there, raising his eyebrows hopefully.
“Is it locked?” Amaranthe eyed the street and the dock to make sure they were indeed alone—and to see if the soldiers had left any clues. Only the lingering scent of burning coal remained.
“Nope.” Maldynado pressed his ear to the metal door, then turned the knob and peered through the crack.
The sounds of clanking machinery escaped.
“The presses are running early for the morning’s paper,” Amaranthe said. “It’s not even—”
Maldynado shut the door quickly.
“Did someone see you?” Amaranthe crouched, ready to spring off the dock and into the darkness if needed.
“I don’t think so.”
“We better go in through the attic. There’ll be a number of people around to man those presses.”
“Not people,” Maldynado said, “soldiers.”
Another time, Amaranthe might have pointed out that soldiers qualified as people, but not now. Soldiers? Had Ravido or one of the other erstwhile leaders taken over the Gazette? “The soldiers are working the presses? Or just in the room?”
“I only saw two men, but it looks that way.” Maldynado waved to the drainpipe. “Still want to go in through the attic?”
As Amaranthe knew from her prior trip, the attic would take them to a loft overlooking the journalists’ desks. They wouldn’t be able to see what was rolling off the presses from that perch. She had a feeling the army wasn’t here to simply oversee the production of the next day’s newspaper.
“Let’s see if we can slip in when nobody’s looking.” She reached around Maldynado for the doorknob. He frowned, not moving out of the way. She jerked her chin. Maldynado stood, jaw set, as if he intended to insist on going first. She gave him a firm I-appreciate-your-protectiveness-but-I’m-in-charge-so-move-your-round-cheeks look. His lips flattened, but he stepped aside.
Amaranthe eased the door open, pressing her eye to the crack. Sauna-like heat escaped, caressing her face with its warmth. The gas lamps mounted on the walls diminished some of the nighttime gloom of the printing room—a high-ceilinged open space that took up the back half of the building—but the shadows offered hiding spots. The bulky machines, too, provided nooks and obstacles to duck into or behind.
At the moment, she didn’t see anyone, so she eased inside, choosing a route between the side wall and a roll of paper on a spindle longer than Maldynado was tall. It supplied a two-story steam-powered press that clanked and thunked loudly enough to drown out voices and everything else that would have warned her people were nearby. She waited for Maldynado to join her, then poked an eye around the end of the roll.
A man in black fatigues was heading their way, and she pulled back. He walked past their spot, but didn’t glance behind the press. Instead, he headed toward the back wall where staircases led up and down, and a sign on their floor read WC.
As soon as the man disappeared into the water closet, Amaranthe checked both sides of the long press. Nobody else was in sight.
Stay here, she signed, figuring she’d have an easier time crawling under a machine or slipping into a nook than Maldynado.
He propped his fists on his hips.
Amaranthe slipped out before he could argue. She wanted to see what their roll of paper was being turned into on the other end of the press and didn’t know how much time she’d have before the man returned. Automatic cutters rasped on the next machine over, but she found the uncut sheets and, with her back to the wall, stopped to read. Light from a floor lamp illuminated the text, an unfamiliar one-column layout.
“These aren’t newspapers,” she whispered after she’d read a few lines. “They’re pamphlets.” She skimmed further, her gaze sliding over lines like, “…an end to dangerous progressive policies,” and “deportation of foreign plunderers.” “Propaganda pamphlets,” she murmured.
Figuring the soldier would return soon, she jogged back toward the rear of the press. She’d like to have one of the pamphlets to take back to Books, but tearing one off from the uncut sheets wouldn’t be terribly subtle. Maybe she could sneak around the cutting machine and grab one of the—
Amaranthe halted. Maldynado was gone.
Back out to the loading dock? Or out into the pressroom?
The water closet door opened, and she shifted into the shadows without getting a chance to search. The man returned to the front of the press and resumed his job at the paper cutter.
Amaranthe drummed her fingers on her thigh. Search further into the pressroom or slip back outside? She hadn’t felt a cold draft that would have signified the outer door opening. Using the press to hide her advance, she crept farther into the room. A soldier with a box walked past the front end of the machine. She hid in the shadows of the machinery, halting all movement. He said something to the man working the cutter, but the clanking machinery drowned out the words. Someone else called a question from the other side of the room, then a third man walked past with an empty box, heading for the freshly cut pamphlets.
There were too many men around. This hadn’t been a good idea. It’d be best to find Mancrest at his tenement building, then, if they couldn’t get the truth out of him, return to the Gazette at a later hour.
She’d barely finished the thought when she spotted Maldynado. He had indeed gone farther into the room. He’d used a support column to hide his back—most of it—and had climbed up an inactive press to peer over the other side, toward the desk-filled front of the building.
Amaranthe let her head clunk back against the machine behind her. Though he wasn’t near any lamps, he wasn’t that well hidden. Any of those soldiers strolling about, filling boxes, might spot him when they walked past. Emperor’s teeth, she wasn’t well hidden either. She wanted to get his attention, to sign to him—what was he lookin
g at that was worth risking discovery for?—but his back was to her.
She dropped to hands and knees to get close to him without being seen, and advanced into the room, peering through the legs of the press as she went. The man at the paper cutter had his back to her. The two with the boxes did too, for the moment. She rose to a crouch and slunk toward Maldynado’s column.
She almost made it, but the draft she’d been thinking of earlier came, a cold blast from the rear. One soldier held the door open while a second pushed a wheelbarrow full of coal inside. Turning her slink into a sprint so she could escape the influence of the lamps, she darted around the column.
The man with the wheelbarrow had been facing in Maldynado’s direction as he entered, and he squinted into the gloom.
Maldynado raised his eyebrows at Amaranthe’s appearance and pointed to whatever he was looking at over the press. She was too short to see it, and there was no time to climb up the column. The soldiers at the door had abandoned their wheelbarrow and were walking her way, their hands resting on weapons, one a short sword and the other a pistol.
Maldynado leaped from his spot, sliding out his rapier before he landed, and he charged the pair. Amaranthe didn’t know whether he assumed he could handle two trained soldiers on his own, or if he meant to distract them so she could sneak up on them from behind, but as soon as they were focused on him she sprinted from hiding too. She circled wide to stay out of their peripheral vision if possible. The one with the sword had swept his blade out to square off with Maldynado, and the man with the pistol was skittering back, lifting his arm and lining up a shot. Amaranthe didn’t want either gunshots or sword clashes ringing out, or the rest of the soldiers in the building would descend on them in heartbeats.
Maldynado feinted a few times, deliberately not touching steel to steel, but maneuvering to put his opponent in his comrade’s line of fire. He seemed to know what Amaranthe had in mind.
Yanking out her dagger, she ran up behind the pistol wielder, trusting the noisy machines to bury the sounds of her footfalls. She flipped the weapon and smashed the hilt into the back of his head. Taking advantage of his moment of surprise, she kicked at the inside of his knee, then darted about to wrest the pistol from his grasp. He recovered and spun toward her, tearing a dagger from a belt sheath, but she thrust the firearm into his face.