It wasn’t a long journey to the eastern tunnel, and I was thankful I’d been there before. Left at the saddlers, then past the town houses, row after row; they were all black-windowed and silent. I tried not to think of anyone pulling their curtain aside to see a woman alone at an hour meant only for dark work.
I passed through identical brick veneers, moving mud away from the soles of my feet as I passed over gutters, and finally, finally, the hills spread out before me, and I could see the indentation on the hillside that would burrow into its depths, then fathoms below, all the way to the Alchemist.
There was no sign of Otto or Scottie, though I squinted through the dark for any sign of movement. Perhaps they were already partway down the tunnel, leaving me to follow quietly behind at
