Zach shivered against the cold. It was damp in this room, and smothered in constant darkness. The musty smell of rotting vegetables clung to the air, an odor that reminded him of the kitchen at the orphanage. The association wasn’t comforting. His movements sounded muted against the earthen floor, suggesting a tightly enclosed space. He was in a cellar of some sort. He’d been here for more than a day, he guessed, though it was impossible to measure the passage of time in the dark.
He’d been alone for a very long time. He could hear his captors coming and going, their footfalls sounding above his head, loosing cascades of dirt that fell into his eyes. He couldn’t even wipe away the grit, since his hands were still bound. At least they had removed the gag. Apparently, they didn’t mind if he screamed, so Zach didn’t bother trying. He was braver than that, anyway.
He had mapped out the room as best he could. It was about five leg spans by ten, with a set of stairs leading up to a door. He’d counted fifteen stairs, for all the good it did him. There were a couple of crooked shelves on one wall, which Zach had explored in detail, searching for a nail or anything else he could use to cut through his bonds. No such luck; the shelves were bare, and whatever hardware affixed them to the wall, he couldn’t find it.
He slept a lot. There wasn’t much else to do. When he wasn’t sleeping, he spent a lot of time thinking about Lenoir. He was sure the inspector was looking for him. Lenoir had always said that Zach was valuable, and Zach took him at his word. Lenoir wouldn’t want anything to happen to him. Still, Zach wondered what was taking so long. Lenoir was the best inspector in the Five Villages—everyone said so. He could find anything and anyone. So why wasn’t he here yet? How was it that Zach’s captors were still free? The only explanation he could think of was that it had taken Lenoir a while to realize he was missing. That would make sense; it wasn’t as though they saw each other every day.
He decided to try sending Lenoir a message with his mind. Maybe if he thought hard enough, Lenoir would hear him somehow, or if he couldn’t hear, exactly, he would somehow just know, like an instinct. Zach closed his eyes and thought so hard his face hurt.
A noise sounded above his head, and his heart leapt. But it was only his captors returning. He recognized their voices now. There were three of them, two men and a woman, all Adali. There had been more at first, but some of the voices had gone away and never come back. Sometimes they spoke Braelish, and sometimes they didn’t. Even when they did, Zach didn’t learn much. They argued a lot, the woman especially, and sometimes it became heated. They were arguing now.
“That’s four, Ani. Four. Or have you not been keeping track?”
“I can count perfectly well,” a woman’s voice said angrily. “You’re not the only one who can think.”
“Oh, really? Then why am I the only one who sees what’s happening here? Everyone who handled one of the corpses is dead. Do you think it’s coincidence, Ani?”
“It may be,” said the one called Ani. “We don’t even know for sure what happened to the gravedigger. He may have fled the area. He was a coward, after all.”
“Bah! You’re a fool!”
“You are both fools,” said a third voice. His accent was different from the others, much more pronounced. “Even if you are right, Kern, it is too late to turn back now. If we do not succeed, the whole clan is at risk. I would rather take my chances with vigilantes than lose everything.”
“Vigilantes?” the other man echoed incredulously. “Is that what you think is going on? They found Raiyen with his throat stabbed in a hundred places and the life strangled out of him. We’re no strangers to lynch mob justice. Have you ever seen such brutality?”
“You exaggerate,” said Ani scornfully.
Zach’s mind whirred as he listened. His captors were obviously scared, especially the man called Kern. It sounded as though one of them was dead, and maybe more. Zach didn’t know what a “vigilante” was, but he knew plenty about lynch mobs. Every street urchin knew about those. They could just sort of happen, a group of passersby intervening to stop a thief or a vandal. The scarier kind was organized, brought together to catch a rapist or a murderer and make sure he got sorted. Mob justice wasn’t uncommon in the Five Villages, especially in Kennian, and as far as Zach could tell, the hounds didn’t worry about it too much. But he’d never heard of anything quite as ugly as what had happened to Raiyen.
The voices hushed abruptly as a new set of footsteps joined them. There were murmured greetings, and then an unfamiliar voice said, “Here you are. I came by earlier, but the house was empty. Where have you been?” Like Ani’s and Kern’s, this accent was softer, more like a normal Kennian accent. Zach decided that most of his captors were local, but one of them wasn’t. Lenoir would have been proud of him for figuring that out.
“We went to find news about Leshni,” Ani said. “They found him in an alley in Berryvine. You heard about that too?”
“I have. What of it?”
“That makes four,” Kern said again.
“We suspect vigilantes.”
“You suspect vigilantes,” Kern hissed.
“You are too easily distracted,” the newcomer said coolly. “Remember your purpose. If you succeed, your clan will be powerful, more so than many of the others. Keep that always in your mind, and you need not worry. The good of your clan is all that matters.”
“Meaning that each of us is expendable,” Kern said.
“Of course we are,” the man with the heavy accent said. “The clan always comes first. Where are your values? Or have you been living amongst the city folk for so long that you forget who you are?”
“I was born here,” Kern said. “What’s the clan ever done for me? They don’t even know I exist. What do I care if they’re powerful?”
“It is not about power,” the other man said. “Our people are suffering. This is a small price to pay to heal them.”
“For you, maybe.”
“You are free to leave at any time, Kern.”
“And go where? I need the money.” The floorboards above Zach’s head sounded with footsteps, as though someone had started pacing. When Kern spoke again, he sounded calmer. “It’s just . . . this is getting out of hand. You never said anything about hurting anyone. They were supposed to be dead already. And now these killings . . .”
“Enough,” said the newcomer. “How much longer do you need? This is already taking far more time than you said it would.”
“It has been more difficult than we anticipated,” the one with the heavy accent said. “We have failed twice, but we learned valuable lessons.”
“You can manage without the other witchdoctor?”
“Raiyen’s loss was a setback, but I do not think he truly had the stomach for this in any case. He served his purpose; I learned what I needed from him. We are close now. I just need to make a few adjustments.”
“Then do it! The hounds are snooping around, and it’s only a matter of time before they find us. Hurry your preparations, and inform me when you are ready to try again. I want to be there this time.”
“As you wish.”
The newcomer left, and the trio went back to arguing. Zach had stopped listening. He didn’t want to hear any more about murder and vigilantes. He didn’t want to think about what his captors were planning for him. Instead he clung to those few precious words the newcomer had spoken.
The hounds were coming. Lenoir was coming. Zach closed his eyes and waited.
Lenoir had never waited so impatiently for night to come. His leg bounced restlessly under the table, and his eyes strayed to the window every few minutes. He had not moved from the spot all day. The barmaid had gone from curious to nervous to disturbed. She had long since stopped coming over to refill his wine. It was for the best; he needed his wits about him. Finally, when he could stand it no more, he grabbed his coat and headed for the door, ignoring the look of relief on the barmaid’s face. It was not yet sunset, but it was close enough. He had just enough time to make it to the main square in the market district. He was not sure why he had chosen the spot, but it seemed as good as any.