Page 83 of Mistress of Bones
Azul hurried to take off the mask and retrieved Isadora’s earring from her pocket, rehooking it after a few fumbling tries. “De Guzmán sent you?”
Esparza began walking. “Indeed. Come now. We are in a hurry, yes?”
“Yes.” Azul followed, shoulders hunched as if they could hide her from curious onlookers. “And Nereida?” she asked, fighting to advance through the crowd.
“Don’t worry about De Guzmán. She has her own appointment to meet.”
Nereida had mentioned she wouldn’t come with her, but it still didn’t feel right.
Sensing her reluctance, Esparza gave her a pointed look over his shoulder. “Come, don’t come. I don’t care, but I won’t offer again.”
“Sorry. I’ve grown to be suspicious since my arrival in Cienpuentes.”
He accepted her apology by slowing his strides. As the crowds thinned, it was easier to walk. The freedom made her realize how nervous she was.
“Can you truly give me access to the ossuary?” she asked.
“We will soon find out, won’t we?”
His tone was jovial, and when Azul glanced up, she found his mouth widening with a smile and his eyes bright in the warm light.He reminded Azul of Isadora. Of when she did what she enjoyed best—card games, sword fighting, looking for trouble.
When the streets emptied of revelers and Azul was better able to gauge her surroundings, the memories of Isadora receded to give way to renewed suspicions. They had come to a part of the city she didn’t recognize. A part that held neither the ossuary nor the Temple.
Her hand touched her dagger, the bone hilt a reassuring presence. “Where are you taking me? The ossuary is not near.”
“The ossuary is a useful building for people who work aboveground. The real one is here.” Esparza pointed at a square structure illuminated by the two moons. Old—no, ancient—it reminded Azul of the old fortress on top of Monteverde, with its big chipped boulders that seemed capable of carrying the weight of the continents as much as the Anchor did.
They approached through the empty street. After the overwhelming energy of the crowds, the contrast was eerie. Azul was unsettled by it, and the stranger must have been, too, because he motioned for her to be silent and hastened to a side entrance.
He had a key, a giant old thing for the big lock on the door. No lights came from inside once he unlocked and opened the door, no windows allowed Luck and Wonder’s shine. With a muttered curse, the man pulled a sheaf from under his tabard and studied it in the moonlight outside.
Azul peeked at it, too—a rough map of corridors and rooms.
“I hope your memory for these things is better than mine,” Esparza murmured, folding the page and returning it to his pocket.
They went inside. With the door closed behind them and their eyes not yet accustomed to the lack of light, they advanced in utter darkness.
“Is this a room or a corridor?” Esparza asked by an opening in the wall.
“A room.”
He stopped anyway.
“It’s a room,” Azul insisted. “Two rooms on the right, then the corridor.”
“Not a room, the corridor, and two rooms?”
Azul waited. Esparza crossed the doorway and crashed against something.
“It’s a room,” he agreed.
Slowly, they went deeper into the building, almost falling down sets of steps here and there until they found a room with a few embers still smouldering under a brazier’s cover. Esparza was able to bring a flame to life and lit a lamp, and she heard him thank the gods as he passed the lamp to her and retrieved the map.
It was easy work then to backtrack and gain access to a cavernous hall that made her shiver and look longingly toward the dark maw they had emerged from. The light didn’t reach the ceilings here, even though the building was only two stories tall. The hall must’ve been carved into the ground, she surmised. The walls sucked the light from their lamp, refusing to mirror it back. For the first time in recent memory, Azul felt no urge to step closer and figure out how something like that was possible.
A formidable iron gate blocked a set of wide steps leading down into a tunnel. Esparza ran his hands against the thick bars and the intricately wrought middle mechanism locking them in place.
“This wasn’t on the map,” he murmured. He pushed, pulled, and nothing happened. The old key was of no use.
