Petra Vane's Arc

Chapter 7 of 10

Petra wiped the blood from Lior's feet with a wet rag. The blood was not the girl's own. Someone in the old block had watched the hound trot home. If they had followed the dog through the drainage tunnels, they knew the way to her room. She could not treat one more fugitive if the patrols were already crawling toward her table. "We can't stay blind," Petra said. "I need to know if the tunnel is watched." She knelt by the three-legged hound. The basset leaned into her hand, ears dragging the floor, its crutch leg tapping the concrete. This dog had carried chips across the capital and never once been caught. It could pass where Petra could not. She scratched behind its heavy ears and made her choice. "You go alone this time," she told it. "Just look. Then come back." Lior grabbed Petra's sleeve and shook her head. Petra pried the small fingers loose. "If a person waits in the tunnel, they'll see a stray dog. Nothing more. They won't chase it." Lior held still, then nodded once. She trusted Petra's hands. Now she would trust her plan. Petra tied a strip of pale cloth around the hound's crutch leg. "If the way is clear, come straight back. If you smell someone, turn and run. The cloth will tell me." She pointed the dog at the dark mouth of the tunnel. It clicked and dragged into the shadow and was gone. The wait was worse than any throw over the prison wall. Petra crouched at the tunnel mouth. Lior stood beside her, breath shallow. Water dripped down the reinforced concrete. Every drop sounded like a boot. Then the clicking came back, fast and uneven. The hound burst from the dark, sides heaving, tongue out. Behind it, from far down the tunnel, a man's voice called low. Not a patrol shout. One man, testing the dark, following the sound of the dog. Petra pulled the hound inside and pressed her palm over its muzzle. The pale cloth on its leg was gone. Torn off, back in the tunnel, where a hand had reached for the dog and missed. The way was not clear. Someone from the old block was inside the drainage line, close, alone, hunting for the room. Petra had her answer. The tunnels were compromised. But the man was only one, and he did not yet know exactly where the door lay. She still had the guard-shift windows, the prison wall, the fountains. She had a scalpel that finally cut clean. She blew out the lamp. In the dark she pressed her sharp blade into her apron and pulled Lior against the wall. The clicking man came closer down the stone. Petra listened to his slow steps and understood she could not run this time. She would have to deal with him before he reached her table.