Page 11 of Tomb of Ancients
“I remember your name now,” I told Dalton Spicer softly, trying not to wake Mary. “At Coldthistle there was an old copy of Henry’s book. The inscription was made out to you.”
“I’m sure he’s furious with me for leaving it behind.”
His voice was tipped with regret.
“You two were close,” I continued. “He spoke of you.”
He shifted in the seat, leaning away from me and toward the window. “I won’t pretend to be interested in what he had to say. But yes, we were friends for a time. He was part of what made me leave the shepherd’s service in the beginning. He had all these grand ideas about fixing the state of things, ending the eternal bickering among the gods. It was all very radical and exciting. Now I see it for what it truly was,” he murmured. “A lie.”
“He’s good at that,” I replied drily. “Lying.”
“We’ve arrived.”
I could tell he was grateful for that, as he all but jumped from the carriage while it was moving. The jerky halt startled Mary, but I soothed her with a hand on her arm. Outside, in the still gloom of the night, an owl watched us from the top of a stone skull sculpture. Just as Dalton had said, two skull-and-bones pillars marked the entrance to the chapel, a macabre addition to an otherwise quaint place. The chapel itself loomed above the gates, pale and square, a spindly tree swaying on the right side of the lawn.
Dalton opened the door for us, and we climbed out into the cold. The carriage drove itself away, rounding a corner, the gentleclip-clopof hooves fading into the chill. I huddled down inside the borrowed coat, still holding tight to the dull blade. There was no telling if I would need it, but I had been unwise enough to trust one of the shepherd’s folk before, and thistime I would be prepared. Chijioke had warned me when the Upworlders first appeared that they would never be my friends, but I had stubbornly believed that the kinder ones, like Finch, would heed their consciences and not follow orders blindly. In the end, he had chosen the shepherd, horrified by what he had witnessed at Coldthistle House. Yet I believed Dalton Spicer, and my intuition told me he was a kind soul, or at least, well-meaning.
Father, however, had a different idea.
Murderer. Betrayer. Golden liar.
“That’s enough of that, thanks very much,” I muttered.
“Sorry?” Dalton turned toward me as we walked through the skull-marked gate.
“Nothing,” I replied. “Are we to stay in the chapel?”
We moved across the lawn toward the door, but veered away at the last moment, skulking instead around the side of the building. I reached out and touched the cool stones, a shiver transferring from chapel to skin. Looking up, I gazed at the windows above but noted no candles and no watchful eyes.
“This has been a safe house for the wayward since... well, for a long, long time. Not just for my kind and your kind, but for humans, too. It has lasted through fires, through wars, through Tudors and Stuarts, through Williams and Georges...” Dalton vented a low laugh. “I suspect it will last long after Henry and the shepherd and you are forgotten.”
It was strange to be clustered in with those two, but I didnot argue. Toward the back of the chapel, next to a handful of crumbling stone tomb markers, lay a heavy cellar door set apart from the main building. A haphazardly constructed stone arch was above it, engraved with symbols that meant nothing to me. Mary appeared just as confused by them. With the toe of his boot, Dalton tapped three times on the cellar door.
A woman’s voice answered from within, oddly accented and melodious, even through wood.
“What is the reward of sin?” the voice asked.
“Death.”
What sounded like six bolted locks were pulled open. The hinges shrieked, and then slowly the door slid open toward us. The spirit taking up lodging in my head resisted, but I pushed past him, knowing I would probably pay for my petulance with a headache later. I simply wanted to be out of the cold and to wear something clean, to drink a cup of tea and decide what we would do now as fugitives.
Almost as soon as we set foot on the steps down into the cellar, we were met by a surprising warmth. I had expected the moist coolness of rock, but the underground lair was fortified with ancient timbers, a felted carpet softening our steps as we descended. Large lamps repurposed from old barrels hung above us, close enough to reach out and touch. An herbal scent clung to the air—mint, lavender, and rosemary—as clean and fragrant as an apothecary’s case.
At the bottom of the long, long staircase waited the womanwe had heard before. Dark-skinned and short, she wore an oversize man’s shirt, nipped in at the waist with a sash, and a full, striped skirt. Her black hair was oiled and braided into a thick Dutch plait that hung over one shoulder.
“Fathom Lewis,” she said, offering me a hand.
“I’m afraid my hands are... They’re not in a fit state for shaking. Would you accept a curtsy?”
“If you insist,” Fathom replied breezily. She, Mary, and I exchanged curtsies, which felt ridiculously formal, given the circumstances.
“Americans and their manners,” Dalton sneered. “She’s from something called Pennsylvania. God only knows what it’s like there.”
“It’s actually nice,” she told me with a smirk. That explained the unusual accent. “Dalton wouldn’t like it—not enough snobs like him.”
“Ha. Ha.”
“He told me there might be trouble tonight,” Fathom said, ignoring him. She strode off deeper into the safe house, and we followed just behind Dalton. “From the looks of it, he was right.”
