“Definitely.” Gyre shook his head. “What proof do I have that you’ve even been to the Tomb?”
“None that I can offer,” Kit said. “On the other hand, once I tell you what we’re going to steal, there’s nothing to stop you from taking it for yourself and leaving me out in the cold. So we’re going to have to trust each other, won’t we?”
Very slowly, Gyre nodded.
“Like I said, it’s not my crew,” he said. “I can’t guarantee that the others will be on board.”
“Just get me a meeting,” Kit said, her grin returning. “I’m sure I can bring them around.”
*
Gyre led Kit on a roundabout route through the city, skirting the north end of the Pit and heading west. They passed the Smokehouse district, with its endless rows of chimneys drooling black streamers that blotted out the stars, and stayed to one side of the road to avoid the continuous rumble of wagons. Beyond were the tunnels, the road running straight into the cracked, crumbling side of the mountain through a massive, irregular archway. The gate was closed, but a quick detour through a side passage brought them to the other side.
Relatively close to the surface, the tunnels resembled ordinary streets, except that the overarching stone meant none of the buildings had roofs. There were shops and cafés, stables and wagonyards. Since the typical ghoul tunnel was much wider than it was tall, these businesses had apartments behind them, with storefronts separated by narrow, anonymous doorways giving access. There were quite a few people about, even at this late hour, and the pair of them attracted no particular attention. Gyre chewed the neutralizer for his nighteye as he walked, letting his vision return to normal to avoid being blinded by the streetlights and smoke. A thick haze filled the air, and soot blackened the tunnel ceiling.
Kit stared around openly, drawing sour looks from the troops of tunnelborn in drab coveralls as they trudged past. Gyre nudged her to one side of the street and kept his voice low.
“You haven’t spent much time in Deepfire, I take it?”
“Almost none,” Kit said. “I was born in Grace. After that I’ve been—all over, really, but I haven’t spent more than a night here before now.” She shook her head. “I knew people lived in the tunnels, but I thought it would be more …” She shrugged. “Improvised.”
“There’s some of that farther out,” Gyre said. “These tunnels are close enough to the Pit that they’re always warm enough to live in. Deeper into the mountain, it depends on the time of year, the air currents. People crowd wherever they can manage.”
“What are they all doing here?”
“Trying to survive.” Gyre started walking again, and Kit fell in beside him, at least trying to look less like a tourist. “In the chaos after the end of the war, people from the mountains gathered around the Legion base here for protection. Once there was money to be made, though, the Republic moved in and pushed everyone else down into the tunnels.”
“Why don’t they leave?”
“And go where? The Republic border is closed if you’re not a citizen, and the Splinter Kings are as likely to sell you into slavery as let you come stay.”
“Nobody rules out in the mountains,” Kit said.
“Nobody keeps you safe from plaguespawn, either.”
“I suppose not,” Kit mused. She glanced at Gyre. “And that’s what you’re fighting for, is it? The rights of these tunnel people?”
“They call themselves tunnelborn. And, yes. The dux and his Auxies only care about the manufactories and the merchant combines. Nobody else will protect the people down here.”
“Hmm,” Kit said. She gave him a curious look, as though she didn’t quite believe him.
He shrugged and pointed to a narrower alley. “Through here.”
Gyre led them past a junction where a pair of fiddlers were entertaining a crowd by the light of a bonfire, and along another street filled with printers’ shops. They were all locked up at this hour, though the occasional light in a window showed where someone was hard at work on tomorrow’s edition.
The cold stole in gradually, step-by-step, until Gyre found himself rubbing his hands together for warmth. There were fewer people on the street here, and they wore heavier clothes, thick coats and patchwork gloves.
Kit shivered artfully. “I’ve never visited a city where it goes from spring to winter in a few hundred yards.”
“This is nothing,” Gyre said. “If you want to come into the deep tunnels with us, I hope you have something warmer to wear.”
“I imagine I’ll manage.” She nodded at a long, low building up ahead, fitted snug against the curving rock. “Is this it?”
“Yeah.” Gyre pulled his hood forward a bit. “Keep quiet until we’re alone.”
The shelter didn’t have a proper door, just a heavy curtain to keep the heat in. Gyre pushed through it, eye wrinkling against a burst of warm, humid, foul-smelling air. Several large hearths were glowing, banked to save on precious fuel. The interior was one large room, the walls lined with sleeping mats two deep, crowded with filthy, ragged figures. Most of the residents were asleep, huddled in piles for extra warmth, but here and there small groups sat by the fires in quiet conversation or playing cards.
A young woman, standing out from the crowd in her clean gray robe, put down the bowl she was scrubbing in a basin of dirty water and hurried over to them. Gyre raised his head, enough to let the firelight gleam on his mask, and she gave him a quick nod of recognition. She gestured toward another curtained doorway, and he and Kit threaded their way through the press of sleeping bodies.
Beyond the second curtain was a small storage area, backing up against the rock wall of the tunnel. There was a large, heavy-looking box, which shifted sideways with surprising ease when Gyre set his shoulder against it. Behind it was a crack in the stone, barely wide enough to squeeze through, with a glimmer of light visible through it.
Kit raised an eyebrow. Gyre smiled and gestured her onward.
“There are maps of the tunnels,” Gyre said as he pushed through after her, “but everyone knows they’re incomplete. This place was a maze before the Chosen blasted it into a crater. The one thing we never lack for is nooks and crannies.”
“I can imagine.” Kit looked back at the cracked rock wall. They’d emerged into a long, narrow corridor, running at right angles to the street they’d left. “What was that place?”
“The shelter? One of Yora’s projects.” Gyre took a deep breath—the air smelled better already—and started walking. “For people who can’t work in the manufactories anymore, or never could. The bosses just throw them down here to freeze or starve. Yora tries to help them as much as she can. Food and fire is about what we can manage.”
“And you don’t find her charity admirable?” Kit said, catching up to him.
“Who says I don’t?”
Kit shrugged, and for a moment they walked in silence.
“It’s just not enough.” Gyre shook his head. “Trying to save a few people at the edges. There’s always more.”
“You want to do something bigger,” Kit said.
Gyre gave her a sharp look, and she shot back a knowing grin.