The stairs spiralled down along the perimeter of the tower, with the space in the middle just an empty shaft. She soon passed the window she’d seen from outside, and then a little while later, the stairs reached a floor with a door. The stairs continued down beyond here.

  Zandrue approached the door. It was hard to tell how far down she’d gone, but the main building had two storeys, so this door presumably went to one of those. She leaned in close and turned her ear to the door.

  There was a hint of laughter somewhere beyond the door. Presumably people in the shelter. The laughter didn’t sound close, though it was probably best to avoid going that way unless she couldn’t find anything anywhere else. Finding a basement was probably a better place to search anyway, so she should keep going down.

  She really didn’t know what she expected to find, though she certainly hadn’t expected dead bodies in the equivalent of an attic. Still, whatever she was looking for probably wasn’t stored somewhere other people could randomly stumble upon it. A basement or one of the other towers made the most sense.

  The stairs only spiralled down a little farther before coming to an end in a small dark space. A large object, probably a crate, sat in the corner under the stairs, but the room was otherwise empty.

  Why have stairs that go down to essentially nowhere? It could be for storage, she supposed, though it wasn’t very spacious, and even so, why only store a single crate in it? Perhaps it was just a space they didn’t need.

  It was hard to see much in the dark here, though, so she decided to risk a little more light. She removed her backpack and took out the small lantern she’d brought with her. After lighting it, she held it out to get a better look at the darkened corners, particularly the object under the stairs.

  Thick cobwebs hung from the stairs, and there was a brief flash as the flame from the lantern burned some of them away. The object was definitely a crate, covered in dust and more cobwebs. The rest of the space was clean though, free of dust and webs. So they made enough effort to clean everywhere but under the stairs, but not use it.

  She shrugged and turned away. The crate obviously hadn’t been touched in ages, so probably wasn’t anything she was looking for. Perhaps one of the other towers would give better results. She just had to get across to them.

  She prepared to blow out the lantern, but stopped. There was a small smudge of something on the floor near the wall by her feet. Probably nothing, but she knelt down to examine it anyway. It was a rusty red colour. She licked her finger, then rubbed it over the smudge. Bringing her finger to her nose, she sniffed.

  Blood.

  Okay, this was getting ridiculous. This was supposed to be a church after all. She had thought earlier how it would be the perfect irony if Darkers were using Night’s tower, but she hadn’t seriously expected that to be the case. “Come on, guys,” she muttered. “Get a little creative.” If she were running their organisation, she definitely wouldn’t choose a place so obvious for their nefarious activities. Still, it was fortuitous for her if they didn’t have more imagination.

  So, why was there just a single drop of blood here?

  They must have missed it when cleaning up after whatever had done the bleeding. It was hard to be sure, but the blood smelled human, so somebody injured or dead had been in this room, but where had they gone from here?

  She knelt down again, and started examining the floor near the blood spot, gradually moving outwards, looking for any evidence of passage. Unfortunately, clean stone floors didn’t leave footprints.

  However, there were some scratch marks—completely unnoticeable unless someone held a lantern right up to them. They formed an arc from the wall by the blood spot.

  Zandrue almost laughed. Well, she had told Jorvan basements were good places to hide entire rooms.

  She stood up again and examined the wall above the scratches, where she found the barest hint of a split in the stone. Following it, she traced the outline of a door.

  The question was, how did she open it? There was no apparent handle. Perhaps she just had to push it—except the floor scratches were on this side.

  The second question was, should she open it? There was no telling what—or who—was directly on the other side. It could be extremely dangerous to go in. Still, this was exactly the kind of thing she was looking for. The main problem was whether there was anyone directly on the other side. If there wasn’t, she was reasonably certain she could continue on unseen even if there were people farther in. Other doors were presumably not as big and heavy as this one.

  Perhaps she should get Jorvan. If she ran into trouble, there was no way she could be loud enough for him to hear her from here. It might be wise to have him here before she encountered any trouble, except she didn’t want to make him violate his religious beliefs without certain cause.

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  Of course, it was a moot point anyway without knowing how to open the door.

  No, it was obvious what she should do. She should leave and come back later with assistance. Preferably with Felit?a, except there was no way Mikranasta would let her go unattended, and neither she nor Hedromornasta would be willing to violate their religious restrictions and come in here. Still, she could probably get Nin-Akna or Meleng to help her.

  There was a scraping noise and the door began to move.

  Shit!

  She blew out the lantern and hurried to the stairs, running up them to the floor above. Whoever was coming out would presumably come up these stairs, but how far? They might only come as far as this floor, unless they were going all the way up to where the bodies were stored.

  She ran up a little higher, around a couple bends, far enough she could be reasonably confident the darkness would hide her from casual observation and she could still see whoever it was. If they continued up the stairs, she would deal with that then.

  A moment later, two figures came up the stairs and approached the door. One was small—a child perhaps. The other was tall and broad. It was too dark to make out much more detail, and she definitely couldn’t smell them from here.

  The taller figure opened the door, letting through a bit of light from beyond. The tall one was a muscular woman with a shrivelled ear on the side of her head Zandrue could see. The other was a boy, maybe a little older than Corvinian, with brown hair. She couldn’t see his face, but there was something familiar about him. Had she seen him somewhere?

  They were through the door and gone before she could figure out anything more about them.

  It was good that she hadn’t tried to go through the door, though maybe now was the time to try—while they were gone. No. There could be others there. She should stick to her plan of leaving and coming back another time with more people. In fact, maybe this information would be enough to convince Almais to come in with force, Treaty of Elooria be damned.

  She turned to continue up the stairs, only to find someone standing right there.

  Shit. How had they managed that?

  * * * * *

  A whistle distracted Jorvanultumn from his meditation. He opened his eyes and stood up.

  Zandrue was waving to him from the other back tower.

  With a smile, he spread his wings and flew across to her. She had been gone for hours, and he was starting to get worried. Dawn would be approaching soon.

  “Sorry it took so long,” she said as he landed.

  “Did you find anything?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing of relevance, anyway. I went down Night’s tower, crossed through the main building, tried the front two towers, then made my way back to this one. They have some interesting stuff here. I mean, this tower has a room filled with some beautiful artwork dedicated to Nature, but that’s hardly useful. I did find the room where they store their records and went through what was there, but they apparently don’t store records of communications there.” She sighed. “I had hoped there was some sort of device, a magical item that allowed them to communicate so fast, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. They don’t even have a rookery for message birds. What a fucking waste. Sorry for dragging you out here.”

  “There is no need to apologise. I enjoyed having time outside, and the sky cleared a little, allowing me to see the stars. I was also able to meditate, which will make Mikranasta happy. She always wants me to do more.”

  “Well, I’m glad you got something out of it.”

  “What will you do now?”

  Zandrue shrugged. “I’m not sure. I need to think about it. I might focus on trying to find Darkers in the palace. There must be some still there. Maybe if I can find them, I can find a link back here.”

  “What about the bodies?”

  “No idea. I suppose it’s possible they’re not related to what we’re looking for. I doubt it though. Even so, they show something nefarious is going on, which is why tonight is so fucking frustrating!” She kicked one of the crenellations, then pounded a fist on top of it. She spent the next few moments with her head lowered, taking deep breaths and clutching and unclutching her fist.

  Jorvanultumn let her be. That always seemed the best approach when she got angry like this.

  With a sigh, she straightened up again. “Want to fly me down to the ground, or hell, all the way back to the palace?”

  “I can do at least the ground,” he said.

  She squatted as he approached her and looped his arms around her shoulders.

  “Perhaps you can return here another night and search again. Perhaps you just missed something.”

  She gripped his arms very tightly—almost painfully so. “Yeah, sure.”

  Clearly, she had not calmed down enough for that suggestion. He did not want to anger her more, so decided not to say anything about her grip and just put up with the discomfort.

  Jorvanultumn understood her frustration. The bodies were a clear indication something unusual was going on, but to find nothing else after hours of searching would have frustrated him as well. It seemed likely she had missed something. It was a very large building, after all, and not a mark of shame at all if searching it required multiple attempts. However, he would wait until she had fully calmed down before attempting to suggest again that she come back. He also should not keep her waiting to fly.

  Their previous flight together had not been an exceedingly large strain on him. He was not sure if he could make it all the way to the palace, but he could make it at least partway, so he would fly her as far as he could manage. He spread his wings and leapt into the air.

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