“What’s your read on the guard?” Teka asked him when he was close enough to hear her. She was wrapped in gray fabric, her hair combed over her missing eye in a sweep of gold. He looked over her shoulder at the guard stationed outside the door Cyra had told them to use. It was the same color as the wall, with an old-fashioned lock that took a metal key. Probably buried in one of the guard’s pockets.
But Akos wasn’t supposed to be figuring out the door, he was supposed to be figuring out the man. He was no more than five seasons Akos’s senior, broad-shouldered and wearing earned armor. The heel of his hand was balanced on the handle of his currentblade, which was sheathed at his hip. Capable, Akos guessed, and not easy to knock senseless.
“I could take him down, but not quietly,” Akos said. “I’d probably get myself arrested.”
“Well, we’ll call that our backup plan,” Isae said. “What about distraction?”
“Yeah, sure.” Teka folded her arms. “The man was hired to guard a secure door that leads to Ryzek Noavek’s secret underground prison, and his failure to do so will probably result in his execution, but he will definitely abandon his post just because you wave something shiny at him.”
“Say ‘secret underground prison’ a little louder, why don’t you?” Isae said.
Teka snapped a reply, but Akos wasn’t paying attention. Cisi was tugging his sleeve.
“Let me see your vials,” she said. “I have an idea.”
Akos kept a few vials with him wherever he went—sleep elixir, calming tonic, and a blend for fortitude among them. He wasn’t sure what Cisi needed, but he undid the strap holding the vials against his arm and handed the hard little packet to her. All the glass clinked together as she sorted through it, choosing the sleep elixir. She uncorked it, sniffed it.
“That’s strong,” she said. Isae and Teka were still bickering. About what, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to get between them unless they started throwing punches.
“It’s useful for certain situations,” Akos replied vaguely.
“Go buy me something to drink from that cart over there, would you?” Cisi said, nodding to the big shaded cart across the square. She sounded confident enough, so he didn’t ask questions. He slipped through the crowd, sweat curling over the back of his neck. Like Teka, he wore a gray robe over his armor, which didn’t exactly make him inconspicuous—he was still the tallest person in sight—but made him look a little less like the person who had rescued Cyra Noavek from the amphitheater the day before.
The cart was sagging into its wheels, and so lopsided Akos wondered how all the mugs—full of some kind of rich, spicy drink from Othyr that lifted a person’s spirits, if the shouts of the seller were to be believed—didn’t just slide off and break on the street. The Othyrian man named a price in broken Shotet, and Akos tossed him a coin. Cyra had left a stash of money in their quarters on the sojourn ship, opening it to him without ceremony one morning as she was cleaning her teeth, and he’d kept some of it, just in case.
He carried the hot mug, which was tiny in his hand, over to Cisi, who dumped the vial of sleep elixir in it and sauntered over to the guard. Without a word of explanation.
“I doubt he speaks Thuvhesit,” Teka said.
Cisi’s posture relaxed, and a smile spread over her face as she greeted the guard. At first the man looked like he would yell at her, but then he got that sleepy look, the same one both Jorek and Jyo had given Cisi yesterday.
“She could be speaking Ogran,” he said. “It wouldn’t matter.”
He’d seen the effects of Cisi’s gift before, but only when she wasn’t really trying. He had no idea how potent the effect would be when she actually put effort into it. The guard was leaning back against the amphitheater wall, a little smile curling his lips, and when she offered him the mug, he cradled it in both hands. And sipped.
Akos hustled through the crowd, quick. If the guard was going to topple, he wanted it to happen as discreetly as possible. And sure enough, by the time he made it to his sister’s side, the guard was swaying on his feet, the rest of the Othyrian drink splashing on the packed dirt. Akos caught him by the shoulders and lowered him to the ground, slow. Teka was already crouched over the man’s body, searching his pockets. She turned up the key quickly, checked over her shoulder, and crammed it into the lock.
“Okay,” Isae said to Cisi. “That was downright alarming.”
Cisi just grinned.
Akos dragged the sleeping guard over to the side, next to the building, then ran to join the others in the open doorway. The maintenance tunnel beyond smelled like hot trash and mildew, and the odor sent a sharp feeling into his gut, like a needle, for some reason. The air felt thick, like there was too much moisture in it. Teka locked the door behind her and pocketed the key.
Now that they were in, there was no bickering, no joking, no improvising. It was quiet in the maintenance tunnel except for a faraway dripping sound, and it was worse, not being able to hear the crowd outside or the cheers from the arena above. Not knowing if Cyra had made it in, if she had made her challenge already, or if they would ever get out with Ori in tow. This tunnel felt less like a basement now, and more like a tomb.
“Cyra said to move toward the center,” Isae said softly. “She didn’t remember the path exactly. Said she was out of it when she was taken here last.”
But Cyra wasn’t the only person who had been here. Akos closed his eyes, thinking back to the night when Vas had wrestled him from his bed after a few days’ starvation—he didn’t know how long exactly, just that his door was locked and nobody would explain to him what was going on, and his stomach had ached for hours on end. And then stopped aching, like it had given up.