Chapter 167

The slot went in a dozen paces, low enough that Rowan had to go bent double and swore at his leg the whole way, and then it opened, and there was a stair going down.

This one had never seen weather. The steps were cut so true that the lantern light lay along their edges in straight lines, down into the dark, and every one was wet. Water came out of the wall on the right in a sheet as thin as varnish and ran across each tread and over the lip and down to the next, with a small continuous sound like someone breathing through their teeth.

I counted the steps, because I count things. A hundred and twelve.

Rowan heard me say the number under my breath and looked at me over the lantern. There are only so many times a number can be an accident.

***

The chamber at the bottom was round, and not large. The roof was lost in the dark above the lantern, and from somewhere up in that dark, water fell in single drops, at long intervals, onto the floor, and each drop r