Blood Trials

There it is again: the smell of death, greasy and nauseating. Two nights after they finally took down the bodies of the so-called traitors, it still clings to Obeisance Plaza, riding the occasional eddy in the fog. I swallow hard and wait for it to pass.

Sporadic shadows scurry along the plaza’s far edge: people on their way to work for the night, not looking up, minding their business. They don’t disturb the grim, chilly hush that hangs over the place. I’m the only one warming my hands at the brazier that occupies the middle of the square. Its sullen red glow doesn’t push the darkness—or the cold—back by much.

But that’s not why my gloved fingers are trembling.

It’s been years since a job has managed to make me nervous. As I warn my clients, anyone who claims to be the best in this business is a posing braggart—but I’m among the best; that’s simple fact. I’m not sure what to call my line of work anymore. Theft became an understatement a long time ago. My brother, who gets a kick out of fancy words, suggested bespoke extralegal logistics. I’ve lifted secret documents from slate-roofed offices in Sacrifice Quarter. I’ve tracked down jewels hidden in a stinking undercity sewer. That’s why people come to me. Even Madame Calvera, the bloodhouse owner who was once my employer, now sends me referrals. I make the impossible happen every night.

Tonight is no different. Infiltrating the infamous stone and iron hulk of Melee Mortis, the beating heart of King Breno’s war machine? Stealing from a secret cache of fabled weapons hidden deep in the labyrinth of crypts beneath it? That’s just another job. Nothing I can’t handle.

But Argo had better show up soon, all the same. I’ve already been alone with my thoughts for too long.

A shift in the icy air against the back of my neck alerts me just in time to snatch the hand about to land on my shoulder. With a yank and twist, I’ve pinned its owner’s arm under mine.

“Ow, shit!” a laughing voice exclaims. “All right, all right, mercy!”

I roll my eyes and release my grip, allowing Argo to shake out his arm.

“I almost got the drop on you that time,” he says.

“Almost.” A smile creeps across my lips before I can tamp it down. “Too bad we both know why.”

“And too bad it’s only temporary.” His grin sharpens as he spreads his hands, inviting inspection. “Still, the results are impressive, don’t you think?”

In the red glow of the brazier, exactly what has changed is hard to pin down, but its effects are vivid. Some indefinable quality fills out his hollows, heightens his color, thickens the black waves of his hair. He’s brighter than his surroundings, somehow, as if he draws more than his share of the meager light. His pupils are huge, eclipsing his blue irises into thin rings.

The effect, all too familiar, turns my stomach, and I resist the impulse to take a step back. A taste of upir blood—their unlife—is a taste of what it’s like to be them. For a little while, it will lend Argo a share of their strength, speed, and fearless confidence: the near-invincibility of an apex predator. But more than that, it will give him a glimpse of what the world looks like beyond life and death.

That’s the part that seduces people into coming back for more. That’s how the craving takes hold. Thanks to that dose of blood, he’ll pass as a dhampiro—part upiro, part human—without any trouble. But he’s playing with fire, juicing himself like this. I hope it’s worth it.

“Well?” Argo prompts. Finally, with an effort, I tear my gaze from his face.

“You’ll fit right in,” I tell him.

“I feel great,” he crows. “I could take on a whole patrol squad.” He jabs at my shoulder with one fist to demonstrate.

I snort. “Settle down, there, Fearless Leader. The idea was for people not to notice us.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Behaving now.” Argo exhales and clasps his hands behind his back. But he can’t help bouncing a little on his toes, and his grin escapes again. “Ha! And there’s Tanner. This is wild, I can smell him!”

Sure enough, a tall, skinny figure emerges from the shadows a few heartbeats later.

“You’re twitching like a dying rat,” Tanner says, “so I guess it must be working.”

Argo laughs again, breathless. “It’s incredible. You have no idea.” He tips his head back to stare up at the sky, where ribbons of crimson light have begun their nightly dance, scarcely veiled by the fog that shrouds the streets. “I’ve never seen so many stars,” he whispers. “Never. No wonder people end up enthralled for this stuff.”

The sting of the remark surprises me, tightening around my chest. I draw a long breath to loosen it. I thought I had all my old baggage accounted for and locked away, but seeing Argo, of all people, under the spell of upir blood is hitting me…well, harder than I expected.

These people are my clients, I remind myself. My brother’s friends. Not mine.

“He’ll be fine before long,” I tell Tanner evenly. “Once he gets used to the rush.”

Tanner eyes Argo. “I sure hope so. Otherwise, this whole thing has already gone tits up.”

“Language, Tanner, please,” Argo drawls. “The ladies outnumber us. Catyma, darling, you smell absolutely enchanting this evening.”

“Aw, fuck me,” Cat groans as she steps into the light of the brazier. “Give the guy a bit of upir juice and he turns into an even bigger asshole.”

Argo cackles in delight, the sound ringing off iron and stone. Joss, a thin, severe specter appearing at Cat’s side, shushes him.

“Think of it as getting into character,” I tell Cat.

She scoffs. “They deserve him.”

“You’re just jealous I get to be beautiful,” Argo says haughtily.

Cat makes a face and shuffles a little closer to the mouth of the brazier, shivering. “Well, it must be real fucking nice to be properly warm for once, anyway.”

Argo, in billowing shirtsleeves and bare hands, beams. “You bet your ass it is. And I’m going to enjoy every second of it out of pure spite.”

Cat makes a rude gesture at him. I would have laughed if it weren’t for Joss and her polite, strained smile. Her humorless intensity is sobering as ice water.

“I’m surprised you can make jokes here.” Joss has a small, quiet voice, but whenever she speaks, the others immediately subside to listen. “We could be hanging from that wall ourselves by morning. Would you want people to stand around laughing?”

That shuts everyone up. The unnatural silence of the plaza settles over us like snow. Their eyes dart past me to the looming expanse of its northern wall, where half a dozen corpses dangled for a fortnight, strung up like gruesome puppets. The King reserves that treatment for Resistance members—a reminder to the whole city that foolish attempts at insurrection will not be tolerated.

Plenty of the city’s mortals took the horrifying display as an occasion to loudly and virtuously disavow the Resistance to whoever would listen. The upiri are our guardians, those people argue. Protecting us from the predation of the Fae is their sacred duty. The King and his kindred have been at war for centuries on our behalf, and they deserve our gratitude and obedience. The upiri may need our blood and our labor, but that’s nothing compared to what the Fae would take. Defiance endangers us all.

Most of us kept our heads down and went on with the daily business of survival, trying to ignore the smell.

“We haven’t forgotten,” Cat says quietly. “Some of us crack jokes to keep going, Joss.”

Joss is unmoved. “Those were our brothers and sisters. They deserve our remembrance. Especially tonight.”

“We’re doing this for them as much as for anybody else,” Argo says fiercely. “You know that.”

Joss casts a cutting glance my way, and I fold my arms, declining to rise to the bait. I know exactly who I’m doing this for, and it’s not the Resistance. I only work with them when they make it worth my while. I’m too busy putting bread on the table to risk my life for nothing but wishful thinking.

Wishful thinking is my brother’s department.

His idealism infuriates me sometimes. Mostly because it breaks my heart. The mines chewed him up, spit him out, and left him to die one hacking cough at a time. These days, he’s too frail to leave the house. I provide for us both. I always have.

I’m not sure why I lingered in the doorway tonight before heading out to meet Argo. “Taking care of some logistics tonight,” I told Julian cheerfully. “Don’t wait up.” He nodded absently, a blanket around his thin shoulders and a cup of broth forgotten at his elbow, his quill scratching furiously in the margins of one of the upiri’s stupid war pamphlets. People quote his poetry all through the slums. It turns up on walls in dripping letters. He’s hard at work on his next leaflet: a poem commemorating those bodies that hung in Obeisance Plaza. Telling all of Umbrora how they died fighting for a better world.

Listening to the rasp and wheeze of his breath, I was tempted to tell him who I’m working with tonight. Just to see a thrill of hope touch his sallow face. But he’d take it the wrong way, as a sign that I was coming around to believing in their cause. I couldn’t bring myself to disappoint him.

The world doesn’t deserve Julian. Neither does the Resistance. Neither do I.

“If we’re done bantering,” Joss says, “I have some gifts to distribute.”

Joss is one of the only humans working for the Mechanomancers’ Guild. Even as a lowly laboratory attendant, she knows more than anyone I’ve ever met, especially about the inner workings of Umbrora’s buildings and machines. And the “gifts” she hands out are worthy of fireside tales: shards of coalstone that grow hot to the touch when one of them is clasped in a palm; a pair of bone rings that glow with a dim, poisonous radiance. Cat, waiting outside, will use the coalstone to keep time for everyone, since we won’t hear the city’s bells where we’re going. The rings are for me and Tanner as we sneak through the dark. They’re not as bright as lanterns, but they’ll be easier to hide, and when we have to split up, the bond between the rings will lead us back to each other. A satchel full of leather canisters, oiled and sealed, goes with Tanner to carry our prize when we finally reach it.

But Joss isn’t just equipping us for the journey—she’s coming with us. And that shows just how game-changing the Resistance thinks this little escapade could be. If they’re willing to put her on the line, it’s worth a lot to them.

“Aw, no artificer’s rockets?” Cat bats her eyelashes. Joss spares her another thin smile.

I snort, grateful for the distraction. “Where would you even put them? Have you rigged saddlebags under your skirts or something?”

“Now there’s an idea,” Cat muses. Her eyes widen. “Is that how you got that amazing haul out of that bloodhouse in Sacrifice Quarter?”

“Trade secret,” I reply, with my best mysterious smile.

Tanner frowns at her. “What’s your plan exactly? If you do need to create a distraction?”

“I’ll improvise.” Cat wags her eyebrows at him and tugs suggestively at the laces of her bodice. “I’m very creative, you know.”

“Don’t linger.” Argo, for once, isn’t joking. “We have three hours. We get in, we get what we came for, we get out. The last thing we want is for anyone to end up trapped in that viper’s nest when they close the gates.”

What we came for. For the others, that’s the weapons that could give the Resistance actual teeth. I still think their plans for revolution are hopeless, though I’ve given up trying to convince Julian to abandon them. I’m in this for something else—the payment Argo promised; the one offer he knew I couldn’t pass up. While Tanner, Joss, and I scurry through the crypts, Argo, with his deft fingers and blood-enhanced charm, is going to lift a vial of lifeblood from an unguarded upir pocket.

If we pull this off…I’ll come home with a cure for Julian.

People have told me, over and over again, that the grip of the mines on his lungs is beyond human healing. But people also say that a few drops of lifeblood can heal broken bones and close gaping wounds—even mortal ones—in seconds. They use it all the time, Argo told me, in Melee Mortis. As cutthroat as the Academy is reputed to be, they can’t let all the students kill each other, or no one would ever ascend to join the upiri, and no one would be left to fight the Fae. They say the instructors there often carry lifeblood with them, tucked away for safekeeping.

A whole vial of lifeblood will be enough to wash away the stone silt clogging Julian’s lungs. It has to be.

Cat’s still blowing on her fingers. I tug my gloves off and hand them to her.

She protests, but I talk over her. “Take them. You’re the one who’s going to be standing outside all night.” I force a smile. “Besides, I’m cold just looking at you in that neckline.”

Cat pouts. “Well, that’s hardly the effect it’s supposed to have.” Reluctantly, she accepts the gloves, but she brandishes a finger at me. “When we get back here, you’re taking the oath of solidarity. I’ll kick your ass otherwise. You should be one of us if you’re willing to take this kind of risk.”

“It’s her decision,” Tanner says mildly.

“She won’t do it.” Joss eyes me with cold disdain. “And she shouldn’t. She doesn’t have the vision or the commitment.”

“What I’m committed to,” I say, with perfect neutrality, “is my brother. My vision is the two of us surviving. That’s it.”

Joss’s lip curls, but before she can respond, somewhere above us, a bell sends a single deep note rolling down Mount Castelmore. It quivers in my guts, as if I’ve swallowed it.

“There we have it—time to go.” Argo punctuates the words with a clap of his hands and a wicked grin. “See you all on the other side of Melee Mortis.”

***

Three hours. That’s how long the twin portcullises barring the gates of Melee Mortis are lifted, once a year, to swallow anyone who wants to be a student.

Most people who go through those gates never come out again.

The service door Tanner and I slip through has no handle, no lock to pick. But it’s wedged slightly ajar by a roll of fabric: two sets of coarse wool servants’ livery. And the hinges are freshly oiled.

The Resistance has friends in this nightmare place. Joss’s contact, who she calls Ghost, and probably others as well.

Hastily, we pull the livery on over our own clothes. Cat’s in the courtyard, playing lookout, blending in with the human crowds, just another forlorn daughter or sister or sweetheart come to say goodbye to a would-be initiate. Argo’s mingling in higher circles, putting his sticky fingers to work; thanks to that dose of blood, he’ll blend right in with the well-to-do dhampiri as they arrive with their letters of recommendation. Joss has already gone on ahead of me and Tanner; Ghost will give her access to the waterworks, and her signal through the coalstone will tell us when her task is complete.

The blue-tinged lamplight of the corridors carves haggard lines down Tanner’s stubbled face. The livery—charcoal gray, edged with red piping—doesn’t fit either of us well. The tunic hangs a little too short on his skinny frame, exposing his bony wrists. I had to roll the trousers at the waist to keep them from slouching over my feet and trailing under my heels. Hopefully, to a passing glance, we’ll look enough like we belong here that no one will stop us on our way to the cellars.

There’s nothing to distinguish our destination from the honeycomb of storage rooms—except for the chunk of stone that occupies one corner, hidden behind a crate marked Apiary. As promised, hauling the rock out of the way reveals a narrow crevice carved across the point where the rough-hewn walls meet the floor.

I shed my livery, tossing it to Tanner. He quickly averts his eyes when I start to lift my own tunic, which is faintly adorable.

“Don’t worry,” I tell him, pulling it off over my head and handing it to him. “I’ve got another layer on underneath this, see?” I gesture at the layers of fabric wrapped tightly around my chest. “Nothing too scandalous is showing.” He shrugs but still won’t dart more than a glance at me.

My muscles have been wound so tight that I practically sigh in relief as I sink into the first of my stretches. Limbering up is a soothing routine. Lunges. Splits. Backbends. Working my hips and spine and shoulders loose for the task at hand.

The opening of the crevice is alarmingly snug. By the time I shimmy my hips through the gap, the stone digging ruthlessly, icy teeth into my thighs and buttocks, Tanner can’t contain his protest.

“Lira…wait. I can’t—are you seriously crawling into a hole you can span with your foot?”

I spare him a raised brow, and he looks away.

“This is just really stressful to watch,” he mutters.

It’s not a delight for me either. I have to exhale, as long and slow as I can, to squeeze my chest through. The tunnel presses close around my whole body, a vise of searing cold, and a ripple of terror washes over me, animal instinct. I pause long enough to let it pass and flatten back into stillness. Instead of gasping for breath, I push out the last shreds of air in my lungs. Steady…steady… Hitching my shoulders up against my ears is almost enough to get me through. I grasp one bicep, apply pressure in just the right spot, and with a familiar twinge and click deep inside, my shoulder folds a little farther, the arm turning to numb liquid. Tanner’s mouth falls open like a market night gawker’s. And—there. I’m through. I snap my shoulder back into place, slip my arms in after me, and inhale again.

“I’m fine,” I whisper, waggling my fingers up at Tanner’s shocked face to prove it. “All in a night’s work. Now put everything back and get going.”

Reluctantly, he crouches beside the stone that concealed the gap. “Please don’t get stuck down there.”

“I’ll see you soon,” I say firmly, and turn my attention to working my way down the icy gullet. Finally, a long scrape of stone on stone overhead confirms that the opening is blocked off again.

That’s how they seal tombs—with stones too heavy to move.

“Not helpful,” I mutter aloud, lowering myself by another step.

But the thought hangs over me anyway, following me into the depths.