He studies me with narrowed eyes across the street. At that moment, a faint drizzle begins from the sky, muddying the streets even worse and pinging off the silver armor of the soldiers around us.
Rirth nods curtly and steps aside.
As we pass through the tunnel of nervous silver soldiers, Garroway keeps his daggers drawn and spinning in his hands. He mutters to Rirth, “The Bronzes you’re fighting down the road . . . the people of this city . . . civil war will not bring you victory. It will only make the Ministers’ jobs easier to bring you to your knees. You give a warning, soldier boy, but take one aswell: Olhav is gleefully watching you rip your city apart, waiting to feed on the scraps.”
Rirth’s jaw bunches. Through gritted teeth, he says, “You let Nuhavians worry about Nuhav, grayskin. Tell Sephania to stop sticking her nose where she’s not wanted.”
Garro croaks a laugh. “Haven’t you learned anything in the years you’ve known Sephania Lock, you silver-swinging fool? No one tells her where she can and can’t stick her nose.”
Chapter 16
Sephania
“Before he . . .” My mother chokes back and tries again. “Endolf showed me how much silver to balance with the Loreblood, and the other properties involved in the tincture.”
We’ve left the main alchemical room and retreated to a smaller offshoot deeper into the labyrinth. I know it’s difficult for Jinneth to speak about Old Endolf, the surly old Grimson alchemist who met his end defending her against Alacine Mortis.
There was one-sided love Endolf felt toward my mother in their earlier years, before I was around. I’m not sure if my mother forswore all men after my drug-addled, gang-running father Lenaro died, or what transpired to make Jinneth seek the fairer sex.
Whatever the case, she found Keffa, she helped found the Chained Sisters, and now the Iron Sister and Jinneth share true love. I see it in their eyes, and who am I to tell someone what love is supposed to look like? I’m stomach-deep in numerous vampire cocks more often than I’d like to admit. My mates aren’t exactly the model for true love.
Vallan and Garroway have been gone hours. I’ve eaten scraps with the Sisters, talked and reminisced with some of the younger crowd and senior women, and now Jinneth and I have had some alone time for the past hour.
My mother seems obsessed with the Silverblood elixir. I’m glad she has something to incite her ambitions. She’s hardly looked at me, working with her single hand to pour mercury andother foul smelling liquids into the small plate of melted silver and brown-red blood.
Shortly after eating, I provided the Chained Sisters with another offering of blood. Just a bit—not enough to make me woozy as the succor trickled from the cut on my forearm. While it drip-drip-dripped into the vial, Jinneth stared at it like it was liquid gold.
“More priceless than gold, certainly,” she said once I mentioned her bug-eyed stare.
Now she’s teaching me what Old Endolf taught her. I keep getting distracted, peering out the open door and down the drafty, dank hall, beginning to worry that Vallan and Garroway got into some trouble on the Floorboards.
Here, under the Floorboards, the Sisters live like rats packed together on a sinking ship. Kep provides them with occasional intelligence about what’s happening above, but they’re mostly kept in the dark. Literally.
No place for humans to be living.
Then again, I lived like this for years. Caged, taught to fight and fend for myself. If it wasn’t the House of the Broken, it was the Diplomats. If it wasn’t the Firehold, it was Sutlis Spire.
Antones has seemed to do well with the Grimsons, turning them into a pacifist enclave, so perhaps my judgment is wrong and humans don’t need sunlight after all.
“It takes much more silver than you’d think to get the right balance for the tincture,” Jinneth says, nodding along. The mixed solution on the plate sizzles when my blood makes contact with the silver, coalescing until the liquid becomes a dirty brown color. “Our stores are running low on not just Loreblood, dear, but also silver.”
“Hopefully Vall and Garro can help with that.” I worry my lip. “Speaking of, they’ve been gone quite a while, don’t you think?”
Jinneth chuckles and runs a gentle hand across the back of my arm. “Those two bloodsuckers are my favorite of yours,” she says.Because one of them isn’t even a full-fledged vampire, and you see how the other one works endlessly to protect me.“They can take care of themselves. I’d be more worried with you out there.”
My head tilts. I grew up here. Why would she be worried about me?
“Your small handsome friend. Rirth? He’s become quite . . .conceitedin his efforts to quell the city of rotten scoundrels.”
Taking a seat and tossing my leg over my knee, I drum my thigh. “Conceited how, Mother?”
She winces as she sits, and I wonder if it’s the phantom pain from her missing hand, or the fact she doesn’t want to speak ill of my friends to my face and is embarrassed by what she must say. “The Silverknights have grown in number and urgency. First it was the flesh-traders. Then it was the trading houses they raided and looted. Now it’s the Bronzes they fight, turning the city against their own protectors.”
I bark a humorless laugh. “As if the Bronzes ever truly protected us. You know they’re a farce, kept on a leash by the forgotten council of this city and their overlords in Olhav.”
“Still. It’s not my place to get political with you—you are the young revolutionary, I am just an old bag. But if you could speak to your friend . . .”
Sighing, I lean my head back on the rickety seat. “If only Rirth still considered me his friend, perhaps I could. What would I say? He’s only doing what he thinks is right. It doesn’t sound like the people he’s targeting deserve his mercy.”