Chương 22: Chapter 21 – On Unsteady Foundations

Bracken sat in the front of the dinghy and tried to remember how to breathe. His skin prickled. His muscles tingled with nervous energy that would not release no matter how many times he stretched or rolled his shoulders. Every distant sound, every far-off shout or clatter of shutters closing, seemed the baying of wolves in the distance. A reminder that they were not alone in the night, they were merely blinded by it. The outer canals, the sunken district, was not a safe place to be.

Rain fell steadily, the slow sprinkle that had plagued the day finally committing to a storm. Lanterns still burned in a few windows, most of them up high, away from the cold and the damp. Their boat ghosted through the black, only the faint glimmers of light on the rain-stirred ripples separating the waters from the night. They were outside of the city proper, coasting out wide along the Stillwake to approach Cinder's den from behind.

Somewhere in the distance, echoing from the mouth of one of the canals, someone screamed. The sound was cut short. The sunken city did not respond.

"In and out," said Passage. He sat behind Bracken, rowing the dinghy. He'd insisted on going with Bracken right up to the door. A getaway gondolier, and backup if things went wrong. Backup was an ambitious term. If things turned to violence, there would be no fighting back, but calling his friend moral support and the cosignatory to a suicide pact wouldn't have done much good for morale.

"I know," said Bracken, voice tight.

"No sightseeing, no souvenirs. Grab the knuckles, back to the boat, and we go."

"I meant breathing. In and out. You look like you're drowning," said Passage. Bracken was looking ahead of them and couldn't see his friend's face, but there was a calm smile in Passage's voice. Ever the pillar of stability. Bracken rubbed his chest, tugging at his shirt. The damp fabric of his collar felt like a noose.

"Just nerves," Bracken closed his eyes and tilted his head back. He tried to focus on the feeling of the rain on his face, a sensation to ground him in the moment and anchor his mind. That was the problem with quiet moments. Too much time to think about everything that could go wrong. Fear lived in silence and perished in motion, and Bracken needed to move.

"And they said he was too mad to know doubt," Passage said with a quiet chuckle. Bracken tried to smile but his lips felt rubbery and stiff. The pair lapsed into silence, both grateful for the other's company and neither needing to say it. There was no dispelling those nerves, no ignoring the knowledge that they were about to do something that every instinct of self-preservation and ounce of better sense warned against. Cleverness is close friends with Cowardice after all, and neither of them were dumb.

Slowly, Passage navigated their way back into the city through the southern-most canal. As they passed between the leaning buildings, black and crooked, Bracken was struck by the feeling of being swallowed up by a monster. The buildings like rotten teeth in an overcrowded mouth, the sunken streets like bleeding gums. The canal itself, a monstrous throat yawning wide for the pair to deliver themselves down into the belly of the beast.

"If we survive this, we should get matching tattoos," whispered Bracken.

"What of?" Passage asked. Doubtless he had no intention of agreeing, but that wasn't really the point.

"A Wyrm. Can't be changing the gang's name after a heist like this. Deserves to be made official."

"If we do it right, no one's going to know we were ever here. Or are you planning on painting a gang tag on their wall as a calling card?"

"We'll know. And we'll want to tell the story, someday. When it's the five of us running things." Bracken could almost feel Passage rolling his eyes behind him. But he also knew the man would be smiling. Something splashed nearby and the pair flinched, glancing towards the noise. A man clambered free of the canal, no doubt having fallen in. It was too dark to see him properly, but he wobbled on his feet and tugged at his hair.

Neither said a word as they passed him by, the poor soul pacing back and forth and muttering quietly to himself. He growled and punched a wall so hard his knuckles must have split, sinking to a crouch and hissing at whatever demons plagued his mind. Probably a cast off from one of the drug dens, lost to the high or to withdrawal, his appetite consuming him all the same. They weren't far from Cinder and Pike's place now, within shouting distance, but at least the man wouldn't make for an interested witness.

Finally, they drifted around the corner, cutting through the section of the canal where Bracken had taken an unplanned swim the night before. It wrapped around the building he had entered, splitting the block in two. There was no convenient rear window open low at the back, so they were forced to paddle around to the front and stop alongside the rotten canal house. Cinder and Pike had left Silk's Laundry a little over an hour earlier, not long after Bracken had been tossed out.

The Wyrms had regrouped, reaffirmed the plan, and then split their separate ways. Ressa, Sable, and Torvin were on lookout, the three of them across the canal, hiding among the rooftops. In theory, they would warn Passage and Bracken if any unexpected guests were headed their way. In practice, they were there to bear witness, to the success or failure of the plan. No one would be visiting Cinder and Pike that night but Bracken, and his intrusion would only be boring or tragic for those waiting outside.

But no one had dared suggest the trio go home. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. By now, the noctar should have taken effect. They'd slipped Pike enough of the Thulmor-touched narcotic that he would either be unconscious or near enough that the difference didn't matter. If his eyes were still open, they wouldn't be seeing anything, and all the strength in the world wouldn't help him if he couldn't lift his arms.

He wouldn't remember anything much, Sable and Torvin had assured the group. Though Passage and Ressa had worn matching expressions of concern, neither had pressed for answers on how the pair so confidently knew that fact. As for Cinder – well, Bracken just hoped the Apothecary had delivered on what Passage and Sable had requested. With any luck, the bastard would already be glassy eyed and choking on his own vomit. Bracken would find out soon enough.

Bracken shrugged off his cloak and took his time folding it while the boat quietly bobbed, Passage holding them steady beside the house. He pulled a pair of gloves from his pocket and slipped them on, clenching and unclenching his hands. He turned to Passage and handed him his cloak, trying to look more confident than he felt.

"Mind that for me, yeah? I'll be right back." Passage accepted the bundle, eyes searching Bracken's face.

"Good luck," Passage nodded and placed Bracken's cloak atop the canvas bag between his legs.

"Remember, in and out."

"In and out," Bracken nodded back, turning at last toward the house. The tide was a little lower than it had been the night before, but he still managed to clamber up to the planter box without much trouble. It wobbled and made a little noise, but it held his weight. The tension in his body finally finding release in movement, he scurried up to the window, nimble and quick without frigid waters weighing him down. He shuffled through the window and sank down low, out of sight.

There he waited, counting to one hundred while his eyes adjusted to the gloom. The room was unchanged from the night before, still empty but for a few pieces of broken furniture not worth looting. Slowly, carefully, he crept through the house and up the stairs. He took special care to keep to the edges, making as little noise as he could manage and listening for any sounds coming through the walls. There were none. No goons or beasts leapt from the dark, no lights suddenly flared to declare a trap sprung.

He made it to the top floor without so much as a stumble or a splinter and stood beneath the yawning attic. Silk, blind the world to the deeds of fools and thieves. He climbed atop the cupboard left in place from his last visit and pulled himself into the roof. With the gloves and without his muscles being halfway frozen, the climb was much easier. He still grunted quietly with effort but it was a far cry from the swearing, wheezing disaster of his first intrusion.

His clothes and boots were still balled up in the crawlspace. Still cold and damp and doubtless filthy. He pushed them aside and shuffled on hands and knees into the roof over Cinder's office. Light, steady and orange, bled through gaps in the boards. Bracken paused, pressing his face close to the floor to peer through. A mistake, he instantly inhaled a face full of dust and had to clamp both hands over his mouth to silence the sneeze that followed.

Eyes watering, mouth dry, he sneezed three more times, feeling like his eyes would burst from his head with the effort of suppressing the sound. When he finally stopped, he brushed away the dust, held his breath, and tried again. Cinder was in the room below. Bracken felt a nervous smile tug at his cheeks, his insides a mess and focused calm impossible to hold onto. Cinder lay on his side, shivering through a seizure. He clutched the Graspers close to his chest, just below his chin, body jerking with every wheeze.

The glowing mushrooms smouldered, slowly burning down like incense. Trails of purple-black smoke drifted lazily upwards, shot through with sparks of red. Whenever Cinder inhaled, the smoke surged towards his mouth, almost alive in its eagerness to fill his lungs. Bracken watched for five long minutes, waiting to be sure. Laying there on his belly, he felt poised on a cliff's edge, gravity eager to drag him headlong into a fall.

He couldn't be sure, couldn't know for certain, that Cinder wouldn't wake when he climbed down. But from all indications, the man was lost to the world. It would have to be enough. Bracken lifted away the hatch covering the hole in the roof, setting it carefully aside. No need to let it fall back into place this time, no hiding that a theft had occurred, and no returning for a third roll of the dice. Smoke wafted through the gap. Thick as blood, it had pooled along the roof.

Bracken leaned back, covering his mouth with his sleeve and shuffled away. It would be a pitiful end to the heist if he ended up trapped, having a seizure in the attic, prey to the same poison they'd fooled Cinder into taking. Bracken crawled back to his damp bundle of clothes and tore a strip off yesterday's shirt. He wrapped it around his face, a sodden bandana to protect him from the toxic incense. He shuffled towards the hatch, let his legs dangle through the hole and sent Sael one final prayer.

He lowered himself down inch by inch until he dangled above Cinder with arms fully extended. His feet were barely two feet over Cinder's head, the Caller's face hidden in Bracken's shadow. Bracken swung back and forth. Once. Twice. On the third, he forced himself to let go, dropping down to the floor a foot in front of Cinder. He fell into a crouch and stopped, perfectly still. He held his breath, half expecting a lance of fire to burst through his chest or a cry of alarm from below.

Neither came, and slowly he turned to look at Cinder's face. He still shuddered, still wheezed, still grasped the Graspers to his chest – the name at last making sense. Funny, the things a mind thinks of in the moment disaster strikes. Cinder's eyes were open and he was staring straight at Bracken.