Lilith Thornveil's Arc

Chapter 8 of 11

Lilith left the bead among the market stalls before dawn and rode her fat bat home through the tunnel. She dropped from its warm back at the arch and stopped. The truth she had ignored all night stood plain in front of her. Two people already crowded the cavern floor. Now she had opened a door for more. Strangers would follow the trail. Tonight, tomorrow, she did not know. But they would come, and there was nowhere to put them. Shade sat by the pool, testing her weight on one leg. She had come here half dead from a poisoned arrow, a hired killer who trusted no one. Now she watched Lilith pace. "You planted the sign," she said. "You didn't plan the beds." "I have two bedrolls." Lilith pointed at the bare stone. "A hunted family finds the trail, crawls in here, and I hand them rock to sleep on." Selene rose from the shadows, sleeve still rolled from the cut she had given the charm. "Then we stop the trail," she said. "Call the creatures back before anyone follows." "No." Lilith did not slow. "I won't shut the door I just opened." Shade pushed to her feet. She limped to the far wall, past the pool, and pressed her palm flat against the rock. "Then go through," she said. "The pool runs deeper than you dug. I heard water behind this stone the first night." Lilith crossed to her and laid her hand beside Shade's. Cold breath leaked through a seam in the rock. Air moved. There was space behind the wall. They worked through the day. Selene braced her shoulder against a loose slab and heaved. Shade wedged her knife in the seam and pried. Lilith swung a stone against the crack until her arms shook. The wall gave in a slide of rubble and dust. Beyond it opened a second chamber, wide and dry, the pale water curling along one edge. Lilith stepped inside. Her boots echoed. The room could hold ten sleeping bodies, twenty crowded. She turned in the space and felt the weight lift off her chest. "Beds now," Shade said from the gap, dust in her blue hair. "Not just a hole." They hauled dry moss and pool-reed by lantern light. The little bat and the gray rat dragged bundles across the floor, dropping them in a heap. By dusk the new chamber held six rough pallets in a row. Lilith knelt and pressed the last one flat with her hands. Then her fat bat squeaked at the arch and dropped from the dark. Its wings were wet from the tunnel. On its back clung a stranger, ink-stained hands knotted in the fur, brown eyes with no glow in them. The girl slid to the floor and held up a cracked compass. "I followed a bead," she said. "A map led me. Is this the place that takes people in?"