52. Copper rungs and sage

The sunlight split into shards around their heads as Ada and the bandits peered into the hole where the compass had been. It dropped down like a shaft, darkness delving deeper than their eyes could fathom. Copper rungs were fastened down one side, the first hold just visible beneath the space where the word Este had once been engraved.

"Well," said Lark, glancing between the ladder and the bell, "that seems to have, erm, done the trick."

"Indeed. A mysterious hole leading to who knows where or what." The sarcasm dripped from Raeph's lips. "Brilliant work, Lark. A truly outstanding job."

Lark glared back at him. "Well, considering all you seem to do these days—or should I say nights?—is creep around the city in dead darkness, you can venture down there first."

"Oh no. You rung the bell. I'm sure whoever's at the bottom will be expecting you." Raeph gave a mock-flourish of his hand. "After you, I insist."

"Have you seen my ankle?" Lark thrust one boot out and pulled up his trouser leg. "It looks like a bloody plum!"

It did not, Ada thought, look all too much like a plum. Although it had certainly been bloodied. Bruises bloomed around his ankle, their centres shaded green and gruesome, as though he had landed badly from a long fall.

"Why not Ada?" continued Lark after Armestrong had batted his boot away. "She's the one who brought us here."

Ada hadn't actually been the one to bring them there, only the one to suggest it. She doubted she would even be able to navigate her way to Wysthaven's tower from the pavilion, despite it piercing up into the sky three times the height of any other building.

But before she could point that out, Raeph responded, "And if she falls from the first rung? She could scarcely handle the courtyard wall, let alone a ladder into an abyss."

This time, Ada did cut in. "I handled it just fine," she said, her glower matching his. "Just like I handled saving your life last night, in case you've already forgotten."

She turned away from Raeph before his eyes could muster their shadows, and then crouched down, prepared to hoist herself onto the ladder. The arches surrounding them seemed to stoop closer, drawn to their warmth and their hushed voices. The bell tolls had groaned out, and the stone compass' grinding had been the last noise left to muffle their voices. Though now that was gone too, either having reached its lowest point, or fallen too far for them to hear.

Ada tried not to dwell on that second option as she swung one foot into the hole. But before she could turn, a faint glimmer caught her eyes. It glinted off a copper rung, a metre or two down, like firelight across a candelabra. But then came another, and another, their glow gleaming against the rungs until the metal appeared molten in the darkness.

A flame flickered to life opposite Ada, nestled into a nook between two stones only now made visible with new light. It had kindled without the need of a match, though the thin bundle of herbs it glowed around was decidedly on fire. The flame was dim, enclosed and unthreatening, with a bitter scent that drifted around the ladder. Sage; Ada breathed it in and remembered the ribbon-tied bouquets her grandmother used to hang across her hearth.

She was still staring at the burning bundle when the light lifted something else from the darkness, and Ada startled away, lifting her foot back onto the cobblestones as she stumbled to Armestrong's side. Climbing up the copper rungs was a fae woman, whose pointed face was tilted up towards them, her dark hair scraped back into a tight braid. She reached the final hold and hoisted herself up through the hole.

Nobody spoke. The woman didn't appear surprised to find them there, which Ada supposed made sense if Lark's bell-ringing idea was correct, but her brow furrowed into lines as she looked from one bandit to the next. Her eyes lingered on Raeph, lips curling back and fingers fisting in the air. She didn't offer any greeting, so instead Armestrong took a step forward, pausing a second before extending her arms and revealing Min's curled body.

Min stared at the woman, clutching her hands to her smock and mapping the planes of her face. The woman stared too, but her eyes were wide, darting past Min and over Armestrong's shoulders. She straightened, and then said, "We didn't expect you so soon."

"So soon? We only just decided to come here," Armestrong answered.

"Not you," she huffed, impatient. The bandits followed her gaze, and Ada stood rooted as five sets of eyes landed on her.

She cleared her throat, glancing to one side and accidentally meeting Raeph's numbing stare. It felt difficult to swallow, and the taste of ash was returning. "Are you... Is this the Stone Circle?"

The woman lifted an eyebrow, and then flicked a finger back at the burning ball of sage, still trapped within its alcove. "You couldn't tell?"

Magic, Ada realised, as she watched a thin leaf crisp into a curl, only to be replaced by another, seemingly self-smouldering, sage leaf. Was there a way of casting an inextinguishable fire? Ada suppressed a shudder.

"You may call me Yue," said the woman. "The others are waiting below."

The thought of more fae waiting at the bottom of the ladder did little to appease Ada's nerves, and she tried to forget the soot-streaked across her face as she said, "I'm—"

"We know who you are," Yue cut off, abrupt and tight. Ada saw Raeph tense from across the pavilion, and there was no need for magic as the sun flickered like fire over the ebony dagger's hilt.

"Oh," Ada replied, and saw Armestrong shift Min closer against her chest. "Then I suppose you'll know why we've come. My friend is in danger and has nowhere else to go. We think the Hounds are pursuing her for her magic, but she's only young and has little way to defend herself against them. We, I mean I, thought you might be able to help her."

For the first time, confusion flitted over Yue's face, and she returned her attention to Min. She took a step closer, peering into Armestrong's thatch of fingers, unphased by Raeph glaring at her only a few feet away.

"This child has magic?" she muttered.

The question hadn't been asked to anyone in particular, so Ada and Armestrong's voices overlapped as they both replied, "Yes."

Yue hummed a noncommittal sound, like a child who had received a disappointing gift for Christmas. But she swung herself back into the hole, her feet soundless upon the ladder as she clambered down.

"Very well, you may bring the girl and her minder with you," she called up. "The Circle may have interest if her magic is deemed to be true."

Ada made no move to follow her. "I think you misunderstand. We've come here together, all five of us, and intend to remain that way."

Lark drew closer to Armestrong, and although Raeph remained on the far side of the hole, it was clear he had no intention of leaving either. Yue huffed a sigh, then clambered up again and levelled her gaze with Raeph's.

"There is no room for the traitor in our midst," she said, and although she spoke softly, her stare flared bright like the burning sage. "It was foolish of you to bring him here. As if he would ever be welcome with us."

Ada bristled. "Then just take in Min and Armestrong. If you have no room for the rest of my companions, you have no room for me."

She hadn't meant it as a threat, merely a rejection of Yue's invitation beneath the compass, but the fae's attention snapped back to Ada immediately, and her expression wavered. A low breeze whistled through the arches, and in the distance there came the faint laughter of fae by the canal.

"Do you truly know this man?" Yue asked Ada, and she didn't need to turn to make it obvious she was talking about Raeph. "Do you understand what it would mean to let him see the Stone Circle? What it could do to this city?"

Ada didn't know Raeph, not really. And he also knew little of her. But the bandits had helped her since she had left Florentin's caravan, and even if Raeph had been the one to steal her away in the first place, he had also been the one to take an iron dagger to his arm in place of her chest.

And she had helped him, too. She had dragged Raeph back into the valley with only the moon to guide her, and had listened to his story between slivers of starlight. She did not know him, but she couldn't leave him either. Not yet.

Raeph's eyes were bright when they met hers. They were the onyx above the ebony, rich and relentless and surprised, too, to find that she would speak out for him. As surprised as he had been to see she had used the healing on his arm and not on her own hand.

"We made a deal," Ada told Yue. "A deal to help me with another pact of my own. Until we have both fulfilled our sides of the arrangement, we are bound together."

A blush rose up her neck at her final words, and she hoped that the ripples of her hood would conceal it. The iron dagger weighed heavy against her ribs, and she didn't mention that she had already completed her part in the pact. Even if Raeph hadn't asked for the knife yet. Ada avoided looking at him again, though she could feel his dark gaze fixed upon her face.

"A pact of your own," Yue repeated, almost laughing and gripping the copper rungs a little tighter to keep her balance. "Perhaps you are a fool, after all. But never mind about that now, we mustn't hang around here any longer. You can bring along anyone you like, except for the Wolf. He can stay up here with the dogs, no exception."

Ada could only gape, but she heard the growl rumble up from across the pavilion. She saw Raeph, almost ready to lunge at Yue on the ladder, then looked over at Min, whose little chests was puffing up with quick breaths. Ada closed her eyes with a moan, but then opened them again at the sound of heavy footsteps.

Raeph had turned his back on Yue and the bandits, and was already past the arches surrounding the pavilion.

"Go with her and get help for the child," Raeph said, still walking away into the city. "I'll find you when you need me."

He reached a low wall and pivoted over it with only one hand. His wild hair covered his eyes, tight belts and strapped pouches not making a sound, and then he was gone.

"Are you going to follow me, or not?" called Yue impatiently, several rungs down the ladder.

The bandits did follow. They came one after the next, Ada first, then Armestrong balancing Min with astonishing ease, and then Lark with some difficulty. Copper rungs descended deeper and deeper, past the bed of the canal and the foundations of the city. The burning nooks spiralled down the shaft, spaced out far enough that one pool of light never lapped against the next. But the scent of sage followed them all, clinging to their clothes and scorching the shadows as they entered into the Stone Circle.