Merik held his silence while he contemplated just how badly he wanted answers about his sister’s enterprises in the Cisterns. Except … it didn’t matter what he wanted. The city’s people needed his help.

Merik set his jaw. The X on the map was straight ahead, and so straight ahead he had to go.

“Did you hear me?” Cam demanded. “The sewage is almost to our cursed knees, sir! That means…” Somehow, she managed to look even more sick. Her eyes screwed shut. “The floods’ll rush through at any moment.”

“Shit,” Merik said, and he meant the swear. “Cam, I want you to wait nearby. In a safer tunnel.”

She bristled. “I’m not leaving you. I know I’m moanin’ a lot, but this is my fault, see? I said those times were the floods, but I was thinkin’ it meant when they’d end—not arrive!”

“Don’t blame yourself, boy.” Urgency hardened Merik’s tone. “I’m the one who thought it was a meeting time—and it might still be. But it isn’t safe for you to go any farther.”

“S’not safe for you either,” she retorted. “And besides, if I don’t go with you, you’ll end up doing something stupid.” She pushed out her chest. “You can’t stop me, sir.”

A tense pause. Cam looked so small in this light. So blighted obstinate too.

Fool brother Filip led blind brother Daret

deep into the black cave.

He knew that inside it, the Queen Crab resided

but that didn’t scare him away.

“If you get hurt…” Merik began.

“Won’t happen.”

“… you’ll ruin your new boots.”

“Never did like shoes anyway.”

“Fine,” was all Merik said, and Cam’s teeth flashed in a victorious grin. It marked the end of the argument, though Merik almost wished otherwise, for now there was nothing left to do but trek through human excrement.

Hell-waters claim him, he had never imagined that hiking through underground sewage would one day be his life. Of course, he also hadn’t thought he’d be a dead man on the run from his own family.

When at last a wall came into view—when at last, Cam exclaimed, “The meeting place is up those steps, sir,” Merik almost whooped with relief. Here, a fork in the tunnel sent sewage splitting in two directions, and here a low archway was carved into the wall and lit by pale torchlight. Merik hauled himself onto a waist-high landing before helping Cam scramble from the clutches of Shite Street.

They were both disgusting, coated in muck that was too slimy for Merik to examine without gagging. Though both he and Cam stomped and tried to shake off the dung, it wasn’t much use.

Soon, they crossed under the archway, with a hiss of magic to graze over them, just like when they’d entered the Cisterns.

It would seem, Merik realized, that the spells weren’t simply to keep people out; they also were to keep the floodwaters in.

“Do people get ever get caught in the floods?” he asked.

Cam shrugged one shoulder, finally towing back her hood, “Course they do, sir. Course they do.” Then she jerked her head up the fire-lit stairs, and without waiting to see if Merik followed, she marched off.

* * *

Vivia was crossing through the plum trees of the palace gardens, having just changed into the fresh uniform she always kept tucked behind the blueberries, when a commotion caught her ear.

She slowed, turned back and found the king headed for the queen’s garden. Guards and servants trailed behind, as well as two healers in standard brown.

Now this was odd. The king rarely left his rooms, and he never entered the queen’s garden.

Never.

By the time Vivia had hurried to the ivy-strewn walls, each member of the entourage had taken a spot before the ivy-strewn walls. The king and his chair, pushed by Rat, had rolled inside.

Rat was just scuttling back outside the gate. He avoided Vivia’s gaze while he popped a gruff bow, and she avoided his while she sped inside.

The king faced away from her, seated in his rolling chair before the garden’s pond. The nimbus of his hair barely covered his skull, and he still wore his night robe—something Vivia couldn’t believe he did where so many people might see. It was exactly the sort of thing he used to scold her mother for.

Vivia kept her spine mast straight as she approached Serafin. This is normal, she wanted her body to say. I see nothing here to be alarmed by.

A lie. Her body was a lie. Her mind raced, running over every step she’d taken since leaving the underground mere minutes ago. Had she closed the trapdoor all the way? Were the blueberries arranged as they ought to be? And irises, she hadn’t accidentally trampled any, had she?

“Rayet?” came the king’s reedy voice.

“No, Your Majesty,” she called. “It’s Vivia.”

“Oh, a nice surprise.” The king’s head listed sideways, just enough for her to see the edge of a ragged ear. “Help me rise.”

“Sir?” She tumbled forward, praying he wouldn’t attempt to stand on his own. She reached his chair. “Are you sure it’s wise?”

He looked up at her.

She barely swallowed her gasp. In the darkness of the royal wing, she’d missed how sallow the king’s skin had grown. How sunken his eyes.

“I wish to sit on Jana’s bench,” he explained. But when Vivia made no move to help, he snarled, “Now.” His body might be ailing, but his mind still held the Nihar rage.