“New management,” he explained.
“No more Ballensher?”
“No.” He laughed. “They’re long gone.”
“They sell?”
“Run out of town. Bad management.”
He went on to disparage the Ballengers and then admitted they were holed up in that mountain of theirs, probably dead by now. He only hired on because he knew they were going to be replaced.
“How? You have seer?” I asked.
He laughed again. Apparently I was quite amusing. “No,” he answered. “Inside connections.”
Sheridan was a plant? Someone to help in the takeover?
He didn’t see it coming. One second he was walking straight ahead, and the next my weight was shoving him sideways into the black shadows of an abandoned stairwell. Wren and Synové jumped in front of me, throwing open a door. My arm was crooked around his neck, but he was fighting back. Until I held a knife to his chest.
“Quiet,” I ordered as I dragged him deeper into the hidden bowels of the arena, stepping over tumbled stones and passing through dusty webs. Synové lit a candle as Wren relieved him of his weapons—a knife and a club—then ran ahead opening one door and then another, sometimes having to force it with her shoulder.
“A dead end,” she said when a landing ended in a pile of rubble.
“No, back this way,” I said. With little light, it was hard to see, but a small walkway to the side of the stairs led to a jagged hole in the wall and another set of stairs. We finally emerged into what my siblings and I called the cemetery—a vast underground world filled with the Ancients’ metal carriages. The air was heavy, filled with a peculiar dusty scent that was almost sweet. I tried not to think too much about what it was. Poor ventilation in this nearly sealed tomb was what helped keep the carriages—and other things—from crumbling into dust.
Synové groaned when she set her flickering candle on the runner of one of the carriages and it illuminated the Ancient still sitting inside. He wasn’t the only one. There were hundreds of petrified remains, Ancients trapped in the sealed tomb when their world came crashing to an end. Sheridan began to struggle under my grip, no longer caring about the kn
ife at his chest, and I shoved him away. He stumbled back against one of the tall carriages, and the impact made the rusted carcass shift and settle.
“You can scream all you want to down here, Sheridan,” I said. “No one will hear you.”
This time I would get my answers—no matter how long it took—and there was no worry that anyone would interrupt us.
He looked around, taking in the vast cavern, the single candle illuminating just a small portion of it. Hundreds of carriages and just as many bones glowed in the dim circle of light. Ancient people were slung over open doors or hanging out windows, many still bearing their discolored brittle skins and horror-stricken expressions. He looked back at me and then studied Wren and Synové. Their drawn weapons shimmered with the flickering golden light. He wasn’t laughing anymore.
“How do you know me?” he asked.
“You used to work for me,” I answered. I pulled my hat off. Raked back my hair.
With my inked face, he still didn’t recognize me. “Jase Ballensher,” I said with the accent.
He cursed.
“Hmm,” Wren agreed. “You never know when a little loyalty might come in handy, do you?”
“I’m going to make this simple for you, Sheridan,” I said. “I ask questions. You answer them. And every time you lie to me, my friend here is going to cut something of yours off. And trust me, I’ll know if you’re lying.”
Wren spun her ziethe.
“Where’s the Vendan soldier?” I asked.
His hands curled into fists at his sides. “That girl? They’re holding her in town.”
Holding her. A brief moment of relief filled my lungs. That meant she was alive.
“Who’s holding her?” I asked. “Banques? The general? Paxton? Who’s in command?”
“In command of what?”