Penelope stepped up to the table and jerked her thumb at me. “Okay if Gemma and I stick together again today?”
Conley’s gaze slid down Penelope’s body, even though she was covered from head to toe with her helmet, coveralls, and boots. He leered at her before giving me the same slow, disgusting once-over. His lust bloomed in my mind like a sickly sweet rose, each lascivious thought scraping against my skin like a sharp thorn, and I had to grind my teeth to keep from snarling at him.
“Yeah, sure,” he drawled in an obnoxious baritone, and slid a map across the table. “You’re in Shaft 4 today.”
Penelope reached for the map, but Conley covered her hand with his much larger, beefier one. He leered at her again, then started stroking his index finger over her skin.
Penelope tried to smile, although her expression twisted into a grimace, and her anger, frustration, and fear sliced into my mind like daggers. Conley had done this same thing to her every time we’d gone down into the mine. When I had asked her about it yesterday, Penelope had said that she needed her job too badly to tell Conley to stop.
“Shouldn’t we get to work?” I said in a loud, pointed voice, trying to pry Penelope out of his clutching grasp.
Conley’s bushy eyebrows shot up. “I decide when you get to work, girl.”
This time, my own anger sizzled in my heart, and my tongue itched with scathing words just begging to be let loose like arrows from an archer’s bowstring. I wanted to growl that I was nobody’s girl and to keep his fucking hands to himself, but I was Miner Gemma right now, not Princess Gemma.
Conley smirked at my stone-faced silence. He pulled his hand away from Penelope’s and gave an airy wave, telling us to move along.
Penelope scuttled away from the table. I followed her, and we stepped into the smaller square shaft, which was lined with gray metal lockers and wooden benches. Several miners were stuffing their lunch boxes into the lockers, while others were sitting on the benches, tying their bootlaces.
Penelope opened her locker, stowed her lunch box inside, and pulled on a pair of thick gray canvas gloves. I did the same with my own lunch box and slipped on my own gloves. Penelope waited until the other miners left before she faced me.
“You shouldn’t talk back to Conley,” she said. “He can make your life very difficult, both here in the mine and out in the city.”
“More difficult than he’s making yours?”
She grimaced. “Things can always be worse.”
Penelope was right. I should have kept my mouth shut, but sometimes, despite my best efforts to keep her contained, Princess Gemma got the better of Spy Gemma. After all, what was the good of being a bloody princess if I couldn’t help people? My father and grandfather had drilled that duty into me ever since I was a child, and seeing and hearing about all the amazing deeds that queens like Everleigh Blair of Bellona and Zariza Rubin of Unger had done over the years made me want to live up to their fine examples.
But I couldn’t fix this situation—at least, not as Miner Gemma. Once I discovered who was stealing the tearstone, though, Princess Gemma would return to the mine and put Conley in his proper place—and out on his lecherous ass.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. My mouth has a mind of its own. It gets me into trouble.”
That much was always true, whether I was Miner Gemma or Princess Gemma.
Penelope smiled, leaned over, and bumped her shoulder against mine. “All is forgiven. Now let’s get to work.”
She shut her locker. I did the same and followed her into another, even smaller shaft where several miners were standing beside a large metal cart fitted with wooden seats. The cart was sitting on metal tracks that ran for a few feet before dropping down into what looked like a round, deep well filled with blackness.
Penelope and I climbed into the cart with six other miners. The driver released the hand brake, and the cart rolled forward, then started its descent down a steep slope into that waiting well of blackness. No one spoke as the cart creaked along the tracks, and the darkness was so absolute that I felt as though I were dead and buried six feet under. Only it was worse than that, since we were going much, much deeper.
Even though I couldn’t see anything, my magic let me sense Penelope shifting in her seat beside me, as well as the movements of the other miners, and the rigid tension that radiated off them all, as though their arms, legs, and spines had transformed into stiff, unyielding boards. Most of the miners were veterans who had been working in these shafts for years, but there was always a bit of uncertainty going so far underground. Only a fool wouldn’t be afraid of a mountain that could so easily crush them to dust.
Still, we Andvarians were sturdy stock, and this was how we had made a living for generations on end. I was just as proud of my countrymen and -women’s heritage as Bellonans were of their gladiators, or Ungers were of their complicated dance routines. It took a whole lot of heart and even steadier nerves to venture this far down into the dark. Some legends claimed that Andvarians had liquid ore running through our veins, right alongside our blood, a sort of magnetic energy that compelled us to dig deeper and deeper into the Spire Mountains.
I had always loved those old fairy tales, and I had begged my mother, Merilde, to read them to me over and over again as a child. My favorites had been the stories about Queen Armina Ripley, who was supposedly the first person to ever befriend a gargoyle by chipping it out of a wall in a mine near Glanzen. The gargoyle had been so grateful to be free of its stone prison that it had vowed to protect Armina and her family for all time.
The cart skated over something on the tracks, loose rocks probably, and the jerking motion made me bump shoulders with Penelope. She tensed again, as did the other miners, but I remained calm and relaxed. I selfishly loved being this deep underground.
Hundreds of miners might be toiling away inside the mountain, but the thick stone walls blocked their thoughts, leaving me in relative blessed silence, certainly far more silence than I ever experienced at Glitnir, with its scores of servants, guards, and nobles roaming the halls, not to mention the gargoyles perched on the rooftops. I didn’t often get such a prolonged, quiet reprieve, and I was going to enjoy every moment, no matter how dangerous the journey and the work itself was.
The driver leaned on the hand brake, the slope flattened out, and the cart rolled to a stop at the bottom of the shaft. Strings of lanterns lined the walls and low ceiling, while the fluorestones inside bathed the area in that familiar pale gray glow, as if someone had bottled up rays of moonlight.
I blinked my eyes several times, helping them adjust to the sudden influx of light, then climbed out of the cart. Penelope showed her map to the mine steward, who directed us to the appropriate section.
We walked through the shaft, following the strings of fluorestone lanterns like they were arrows pointing us toward our destination. The other miners split off and disappeared into different tunnels, but Penelope and I kept moving forward until we reached the end of this shaft.
We were in a different part of the mine than yesterday. This tunnel opened up into a large round chamber that had been chiseled out of the surrounding rock, and the jagged, dome-like shape reminded me of an uneven soap bubble that had somehow been trapped underground. Dozens of fluorestone lanterns had been rigged up in here, and the chamber was actually quite bright, although the light wasn’t warm, like the sun’s rays would have been.