CHAPTER SIX
RHYS PULLED HIS HAND away from the damp wall that had stopped his fall. The pad of his thumb stung, and his joints ached, but, looking at his palm, the rough brick hadn't drawn blood. Resting his hand on the wall again, he tested his leg, gingerly placing his foot down. The ankle he'd turned on the old, uneven cobblestones of the laneway was cranky but held his weight. In a way, he was lucky the lane was narrow, barely wide enough for the hand carts whose wheels had worn grooves at the edges in centuries past. It meant he'd been able to reach out and catch himself.
But the walls were damp and slimy. Running his palm along his corduroy pants, he told himself it was rain and moss, since the passageway surely never saw the sun. He couldn't actually see what coated the wall in th
