“I should have brought bandages,” I said, supporting him so he could sit.
“Please get … the rest. Germond made ’em let … me follow … the littles.” The injured young man, sitting curled over his shattered arm, mumbled. “So slow. I just—”
“Of course you were slow,” I said. “Would that be Germond the ironmonger?”
“Aye. Got us … under. Shed.” His every inbreath stuttered with agony. “Saved us. Lifted me … to the ladder.”
“And Basilio, too?” Germond and Basilio lived on the Beggars Ring Road, around the corner from Neri and me. Both were quiet men and generous to the neighbors with their tools and skills.
“Nay,” said the injured man. “Basilio keeps the business, while Germond works here.”
Another man was up the ladder. Dumond offered his hand to a grizzled fellow with upper arms like clubs, but the man crawled out on his own—over the dirt, not the trapdoor.
“Mind the edge, goodman,” said Placidio. “Don’t want to drop dirt on your friends.”
The fellow bent over and propped his hands on his knees. “Blessed Gione’s sweet tits. I thank—” His face twisted into a frown, when he looked up at the three of us.
“Mask helps keep out the dirt,” said Placidio.
“Guess it would,” the fellow said. “How the devil did you dig this hole?”
“Tunneled fast as we could,” I said. “Maybe you could help this man, goodman, and we can get these children on their way.”
“Ah, Fidelio, poor lad,” he said, yanking a scarf from around his neck and offering to bind the younger man’s arm. “Curse the monster and the demons who feed it!”
The demons bent on freeing Dragonis were, of course, sorcerers. Like the four of us.
“You two should start down,” I said, urging the two children to their feet. “The rubble is loose and shifty, so careful steps. I’m warning you, no dawdling or playing until you’re down.”
As the grizzled man bound Fidelio’s arm, I devised the story we needed them to believe. I considered what they had experienced and seen—bravery, fear, pain, and the breathless dark. I envisioned the sizes and shapes of their rescuers. Then, laying my hand on Fidelio’s shoulder and the other man’s, I summoned my will to the power inside me and whispered a story: “A clever, big-shouldered man with pale hair dug out a tunnel that came right to the shed roof. He and a robust, foul-mouthed woman companion stretched a rope ladder along the way, and we had to crawl…”
Whatever confusion my magic left behind would be blamed on fear. No one could be buried alive for two hours and not have the mind playing tricks.
I sent the grizzled man after the children. “Could you watch them? There’s holes and snags. We’ll carry Fidelio later.”
He scratched his head “Least I could do. Who’d a thought we could crawl out like that?”
Five … six … seven … One after another, we brought them out, and I replaced the impossible truth of their escape with the lie. Two of the laborers insisted on carrying Fidelio down.
A few people ventured up the rubble heap to see where the straggling parade was coming from. Dumond would toss his pack over the hole, and Placidio would use his shovel to throw dirt into the air. I babbled hysterically and shoved a newly rescued person into their arms, saying, “This one wandered up here instead of down. They say there’s a side tunnel. There seems none to be rescued in the rubble up here, but we’ll keep trying.”
Eighteen … nineteen were out. A long wait for the next, a woman with only one leg that could bear weight. Her powerful shoulders had gotten her up the ladder. She lay on her back gazing up at the sky, gulping in great gouts of air. Her whole body quivered, her face bloodless and rigid with pain.
Placidio craned his neck to peer down at the coliseum floor and up at the broken hillside above us. Then he gave three sharp yanks on Neri’s rope. “Get them up now!” he snapped. “Can’t wait longer.”
I scrambled over to the hole, horrified to see a steady rain of dirt clots and pebbles falling down the chute. The earth beneath me shivered. Darts of fire pierced my skull.
Neri was arguing with someone. I couldn’t hear all the words, just “Go!”
“Up now!” I yelled down the hole.
Neri called up, “He won’t come! We’ve got to get them—”
Another shiver. Shouts and cries rose from rest of the coliseum crowd. My muscles felt like sand packed beneath my skin, shifting, grating …
Placidio held the rope taut and growled through his teeth, “Stop dawdling, boy. Let them choose for themselves.”
“Haul him up,” I said to Placidio. “Whether he will or no.”
Instead, Placidio’s rope fell slack. Spirits, Neri!
For a moment the rope writhed like a snake, and then drew taut again.
“Now, now, now!” Neri’s voice was faint. “Haul it!”
Placidio’s thick shoulders were already straining, drawing steadily on the rope.
The earth shuddered. Enough to set rocks rolling down the rubble mound. Enough that the shouts from the crowd below became cacophony.
“Help this lady down,” said Dumond to me, ever calm and steady. “We’ll see the lad safe. I’ve got to close the way after him.”
The trapdoor was resonant with magic and would be for a time even after Dumond shut it down. That magic could be used to trace Dumond through the city. Maybe the rest of us, too, since we’d had a hand in it.
Though I fiercely hated leaving before seeing Neri out safely, the woman had already got herself up to sitting. She must not see Dumond reverse his magic.
“Come,” I said, shoving my arm under her shoulders. “That was just a twitch. A caution. What’s your name?”
“Gavina,” she said, getting her good leg under her.
We hobbled, stumbled, fell a few times. Whenever the rubble slid out from under us, my heart stuttered. I kept watch over my shoulder, willing Neri, Dumond, and Placidio to appear. Near ground level at last, I said, “Hold one moment. Let me catch my breath.”
Supporting her weight, I touched her bare wrist, drew on my magic, and whispered the replacement memory.
“What did you say, girl?”
“You are the strongest woman I’ve ever met, Gavina,” I said.
She shook her head as if to clear it. “No. Weak. I let the ironmonger lift me to the ladder, ’stead of going himself. He wouldn’t leave me nor Viano, whose back was broke, nor the two others hurt.”
Spirits! “Over here,” I shouted, beckoning anyone. “Help over here.”
When two women took Gavina in hand, I started back up the hill.
“Wait, damizella!” called a commanding male voice from behind me. “Who are you? What’s happening up there?”
I glanced over my shoulder. Night Eternal, the demanding questions came from Rinaldo di Bastianni, Sandro’s cold, serious friend who had despised il Padroné’s mistress. Bastianni, a director of the Philosophic Academie, knew my face, and a Confraternity sniffer was just behind him.
“Come back here immediately, young woman!”
I sped upward.