Page 115 of Reap & Sow

“Ahead, humans,” Tripp hissed. Sure enough, a yellow glow appeared around the next bend. Eda slowed, squinting into the dark. What if Tenelle had decided to throw Eda to the hounds after all? What if this meeting was a trap?

But Tripp did not seem alarmed. As they drew close, it became clear that only one lone figure awaited them, oil lamp in hand. They stepped off the gravel path and through a familiar silvery line of trees. Eda nodded in greeting. “Commander.”

Martine Tenelle looked tired around the eyes, but she stood with a straight back. Her lips thinned at the sight of them. “Benjamin Shaw. Some might call it bold, for you to come here.”

“No bolder than my sister.”

“And where is the demon?”

Eda steeled herself. “Not here.”

Tenelle’s expression only hardened when she noticed Tripp. “Is that…an imp?”

Saints.

Tripp bared needlelike teeth. Eda prodded him with her boot. “Apologies, Commander. Tripp is helping us with Lich’s Gateway. Assuming you still mean to see it done.”

“I am here, no?”

“As am I. But I’d know your plan for the Conclave before I do anything more.”

Tenelle’s brow arched. “You’re hardly in a position to negotiate, Miss Shaw. Not if you want your freedom.”

“Freedom is one thing. I need to know that the demon Fane consorts with will be killed tomorrow night.” Haltingly, she explained Lawrie’s injury and the necessity of Mr. Night’s death.

Tenelle listened with a face of stone. “I see. Then you rely on my men and I entirely.”

“As you rely on me to destroy Lich’s mirror without involving yourself. I will do it, if you agree to kill the demon called Baelion Ansellis.”

A pause. Then laughter. It was deep and surprisingly hearty—not at all how Eda had imagined. If she’d thought the woman capable of laughter at all. “You think I require a service rendered in return for destroying a demon? That is my life’s duty. I would slay him whether you asked it or not.” Tenelle’s eyes gleamed. “I will reveal the bishop’s Gateway at the Conclave. I will accuse him, and he will deny it. When I threaten to destroy it, he may confess to save himself from this Baelion’s wrath. But if he does not, I cannot say that the Patriarch won’t trust his word over mine. We need the demon to show his face and prove Florian’s guilt. How do we know he will come to defend the mirror?”

“The Conclave falls on autumn harvest. The last of our Pact is due to Mr.—Baelion, by then. If he won’t come for the mirror, he still must come for us.” She clutched Ben’s hand.

“Hm.” Tenelle shrugged a bag off her shoulder Eda hadn’t paid much attention to. Rooted around inside. “If he comes, we will be ready for him.”

“He’s not just any demon. He’s powerful. He’s fast, strong, can walk through shadow—”

“A challenge, then. Good.” Tenelle grinned up at her. “There are ways to trap and incapacitate creatures of the Otherworld, Miss Shaw, and I mean to use them.”

Beyond the garden wall, the last of the sunlight sank beneath a darkening sky. Tenelle straightened. She held out something weighty and gleaming.

Hesitantly, Eda accepted. “What’s this?”

“This is how you destroy a Gateway.”

Thirty

“You’re telling me Severin Lich lives in a glorified shit pipe?” Ben said with disgust, taking in the surrounds.

“He doesn’t live here. I’m sure he has a gaudy, perfectly dry townhouse to call his own. This is just where he conducts his business affairs. Most people think there’s nothing in the sewers but rats and drain water.”

“And shit. Can’t forget the shit.”

In the darkness of the undercity, all other senses were amplified. It was impossible to ignore the cloying stench of wastewater. Eda wondered idly how she came to spend so much time skulking about down here. She squinted at the mazelike plans. Tenelle had pilfered from the City Waste & Sanitation Office.

Ben held the lantern close as Eda pointed out a large alcove on one side of a tunnel, marked with a small X. “Tenelle said she noted all likely areas where items could be stored.” There were many such marks. The parchment unfolded into a square so big she could wear it as a cloak, and the carefully drawn lines and curves making up the sewer system were minuscule. It would’ve been hard to make sense of even in broad daylight. “Here is Lich’s guildhall,” she said, pointing out the large, circular space at a crossroads of four bisecting water channels, “and this is Lich’s office. There’s a corridor behind it, see? I think one of the tapestries is covering a hidden door. That must be how he comes and goes.” And a good way to hide something valuable.

Ben traced a narrow path leading away from the room with his finger. The corridor ended at what looked like an exit point—another sewer grate?—and underneath it…“What does that different-colored box mean, around the exit?”