Either way, I didn’t want Reiko to suspect that I was anything more than a miner, so I calmly stared back at her, as though her song choice didn’t matter to me.
Amusement flickered across Reiko’s face, and the green dragon on her hand opened its mouth in a wide, silent chuckle, as though it were laughing at some joke at my expense. Suspicion filled me.
“‘The Bluest Crown’ it is,” Reiko announced.
She launched into the song. All the other miners joined in, including Penelope, and their cheery chorus rang throughout the chamber, punctuated by the tink-tink-tinks of the tools digging into the rocks. I swung my pickaxe even harder at the wall. I might be a mind magier, but even I couldn’t block out that bloody catchy melody.
Despite the torturous song, and the two boisterous encores that followed, the morning passed by quickly. There were no clocks, and the lanterns’ steady, unwavering glow made it difficult to determine the time. If the mine steward and his men hadn’t come by to collect the buckets every hour, I would have thought we had been down here for only a few minutes.
Eventually, a small silver bell tied to a bright blue string at the front of the chamber started jingling. Each chamber featured a similar bell, and they were all threaded together, like an elaborate underground spiderweb. Soon, other bells joined in, until they were clanging throughout the entire mine, and the sounds rippled through the thick walls and echoed back on themselves in light, pealing waves.
Lunchtime.
We set our tools down, trudged out of the chamber, and climbed back into the cart at the front of the shaft. This time, instead of depending on the driver to steer us down into the dark, everyone grabbed hold of a thick rope that was part of a pulley system attached to the wall. Together, we hauled ourselves and the cart back up the steep incline. The mutts with strength magic did most of the work, along with Reiko.
Many morphs were strong, but Reiko seemed to have more power than most, despite her short, slender frame. Even though I couldn’t see her in the blackness, I could still sense her magic. The dragon morph was sitting in front of me, and my fingertips tingled every time she yanked on the rope.
As soon as we reached the top of the shaft, the miners relaxed, and their collective relief swept over me like a cool, refreshing breeze. Penelope and I grabbed our lunch boxes from our lockers, walked back through Basecamp, and headed outside into the plaza.
The other miners flocked to the merchants’ carts, purchasing kebabs of grilled beef, chicken, and spicy vegetables, bread bowls brimming with hot broccoli-cheese soup, and thick slices of cranberry-apple pie, my favorite. Penelope and I bought mugs of pear lemonade, then sat down on a bench close to the low wall that separated the plaza from the mine. In the distance, the fountain bubbled merrily, as though the stone gargoyle were playfully splashing around in the water-filled basin.
Penelope opened her lunch box and pulled out a roast-beef sandwich, along with a bloodcrisp apple and sweet-and-sour carrot sticks. I opened up my own lunch box, which also contained a bloodcrisp apple, along with a paper bag filled with fried sweet-potato chips sprinkled with cinnamon. I grabbed the sandwich I had made this morning—hearty sourdough bread stuffed with thick slices of gruyère cheese and slathered with apricot jam.
I sank my teeth into the sandwich and sighed with happiness. The tangy bread and the creamy, salty cheese combined perfectly with the apricots’ bright flavor. The sandwich would have been even better hot and toasted, with the bread crispy, the cheese melting, and the jam oozing out the sides, like the ones the kitchen staff made for me at Glitnir. Of course Miner Gemma didn’t have such luxuries, but I didn’t care. Even cold, the sandwich was still delicious.
Penelope and I polished off our food and sat on the bench, sipping our tart lemonade with its sweet pear syrup. Penelope chattered all through lunch, sharing tidbits and funny stories about the other miners. I studied each person she mentioned, but everyone seemed content to enjoy their food and the lovely fall day, and no one was acting suspiciously.
“Does anything interesting ever happen around here?” I asked.
Penelope frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You know that I’m from a small town and that this is my first time working in such a large mine,” I lied. “I was just wondering if anything exciting ever happens, especially since we’re so close to the Mortan border.”
Penelope shrugged. “Not really. Lots of Mortans visit Blauberg to shop, trade, and the like, but they don’t usually come to the mine unless they’re placing or picking up an order. But even that’s rare. We mostly mine tearstone, and the Ripley royal family prefers to sell it to the Bellonans or Ungers, rather than to the Mortans.”
I already knew all that, but it was still good to have confirmation.
Penelope turned the conversation to other things, and her cheery chatter washed over me again. The whole time she talked, I kept dreaming up ways I could find out more about the missing tearstone. Perhaps after my shift ended, I could slip away from Penelope and hide in the mine or the refinery and see if anything untoward happened overnight. I hadn’t made as much progress as I’d hoped, and my time in Blauberg was running out. Princess Gemma needed to be back in Glitnir next week to attend to some courtly duties.
Penelope was still talking, and I was still plotting when Conley strode out of the mine, along with six big, burly men. Four of the men were clutching pickaxes, while the other two were each pushing a wheelbarrow. Black canvas tarps covered the wheelbarrows, although the containers obviously held raw ore, given the uneven lumps jutting up against the tops of the tarps.
My eyes narrowed. Perhaps I wouldn’t have to sneak around the mine tonight. Perhaps my prime suspect was going to incriminate himself right here and now, although rolling wheelbarrows full of tearstone out of the mine in broad daylight was incredibly brazen. Then again, Conley didn’t strike me as being particularly subtle.
Several miners around the plaza were also staring at the group—or rather, not staring at them. Those miners dropped their heads and focused on their food, as if pretending that the carts weren’t rolling by meant that it wasn’t actually happening. Tension clouded the air, and the miners went quiet and still, as though they were frozen in place just like the gargoyle in the fountain.
I didn’t bother skimming people’s thoughts. Conley was obviously up to no good, and he must have a much tighter grip on the miners than I’d realized for people to turn such blind eyes to his actions.
The foreman swaggered across the plaza while the wheelbarrows clattered ominously across the cobblestones. I glanced around, wondering how I could slip away from Penelope and follow Conley—
“Oh, no,” Penelope whispered.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Who are those men?”
“Conley’s crew,” she replied. “You know how the enforcer in a gladiator troupe handles disputes between the fighters? Well, Conley uses those men to take care of squabbles between the miners. And for . . . other things.”
In other words, the men were Conley’s personal gang. “What are they doing with those wheelbarrows?”
Penelope fell silent, but guilt rippled off her.
To my surprise, Conley veered in this direction and stopped in front of us. His shadow engulfed us both as he looked down his nose first at Penelope, then me. “You two. With me.”