My heart dropped.

  “A fire?” The question came out as nothing more than a breath.

  He nodded, not directly responding to me. “Some of the guys spotted smoke rising above the buildings. One of them tried to get closer, but there are guards blocking all the paths in. All he could overhear from one of them was that the city guard had found a nest of rebels and were burning them out.”

  A mixture of anger and fear rushed through me as the words finally clicked into place. A fire in the Eastern Quarter… the guard’s warning… The inn. Irinda. Ophelia.

  I swore, pushing myself to my feet, spilling my cup of tea in the process. My eyes jumped to the liquid as it flowed across the tabletop.

  “Go on, child,” Henrietta said, noting the spill. “I’ll handle that.” She started to stand as I rushed into the hall and out of the building.

  “Hey, hey!” Draxi’s voice called out as I rounded the corner of the shop and walked into the street.

  I had to force myself not to break into a run as my eyes settled on the smoke billowing up to the sky in the distance. “What?” I hissed, spinning on the man.

  “The streets are all blocked. You’re not getting in that way.”

  “Then I’ll fight my way through,” I muttered. “I’m not just going to sit around and wait to find out more news. I need to know what’s going on.”

  “I understand.” He held up his hands in defeat. “But at least let me help you.”

  I scoffed. “Help? Half of your gang would rather see me dead than hold up your end of the deal. You think I don’t know that?”

  I wasn’t exaggerating. Many of the members of the Dock Street Gang had become unhappy with the gang’s direction since Woldroff and I had made our deal. He’d even had to take out a few of his men to quell talks to taking me out.

  “I’m not one of them.” Drake’s voice grew hard at the accusation. “I just don’t like you for other reasons.”

  A little laugh escaped my throat. “How do you intend to help me?”

  “The streets are blocked, right? Well, let’s not take the streets then.” He motioned for me to follow and then took off in the opposite direction of the inn.

  Mumbling, I followed. We weaved through the crowd, bobbing into alleys and taking sharp turns until we reached a dead end.

  I glanced around the alley and let out another scoff. “Seriously?” My hand was already moving to the dagger I kept tucked into my waist belt.

  “Have a little faith,” he mumbled, leaning over toward a pile of broken crates. He slid the wood out of the way to reveal a small metal grate.

  I laughed a disbelieving laugh. “You’re kidding, right? The sewers?”

  He shrugged and opened the grate, the metal squealing with the motion. “Easiest way to get around without drawing attention. Not as flashy as the rooftops, sure. But less chance of falling and breaking something.”

  I crossed to the grate and looked down, a sour smell assaulted my nose, sending a wave of nausea through my stomach.

  “You get used to the smell,” Draxi assured me.

  I doubted that, but I kept my mouth shut as he climbed down the metal ladder that led into the depths beneath the city. I followed a moment later, joining him at the bottom, where my boots sloshed in the puddle of water that filled the bottom of the tunnel.

  I stifled the disgusted noise my body tried to make. I’d been in worse situations over the course of my life—shivers ran the length of my body as I recalled a particularly nasty one with an octopus-like entity that had tried to invade our world. Its tentacles had left a sticky, almost acidic substance on my scales. It had smelled awful. Worse than the scent that crashed against my senses right then.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  I just had to focus and remind myself that it could be worse.

  Draxi spoke little as he led me through the sewers. He, at least, seemed not to dislike me as much as some of the Dock Street’s other members, though there was always the possibility he was still leading me into an elaborate trap. I kept my hand near my dagger just in case, and the command to activate my [Swift Strike] ability on the tip of my tongue, too.

  Despite the smell, it was hard not to be impressed by the structures that made up most of the sewer’s tunnels. The walls were made up of several pillars, which provided not only support for the tunnels, but for the city above as well. It had been an engineering feat when the city had been built, and glancing around at it now, I was still impressed by what the human engineers had managed to come up with.

  They really were impressive creatures when you could get past the greed that seemed to permeate every part of them. Greed, I knew, that had only been fostered even more by those leading them.

  Not for the first time, my mother’s warnings reverberated through my mind.

  “Greed is a powerful tool. Use it to your advantage but never become blinded by your own desires.”

  Of course, telling a dragon not to be greedy was like telling a statue not to stand there in silence.

  It was part of who we were. A deep, natural instinct that was hard to fight. Even the brief time I’d had with Brin’s treasures had made me reluctant to part with the shiniest of them.

  We weaved our way through the tunnels, following straight stretches of the stone sewers that ran the length of the city and taking corners that led to winding curves. It was impossible to tell what direction we were traveling, and my heart beat sped up as we continued. Thoughts rushed across my mind—was Irinda safe? Had someone turned on us? I couldn’t help but wonder about Brin, the lack of his ashes, and what might have happened to him. If he had survived somehow…

  And what would I do if Draxi led me into a trap? I could likely take him out. But if he brought a large group…

  “We’re here,” his voice broke the silence and I focused on his silhouette in the tunnel ahead of me.

  Another metal ladder led up to the roof of the tunnel, a grate barely visible at the top.

  “That will bring you out just inside the Eastern Quarter. It should be beyond any of the guard stations they’ve set up.”

  “Thanks,” I said, stepping up to the ladder. I eyed the man for another moment before finally grabbing one of the rungs and pulling myself up.

  Heaving, I pushed the grate up and open. Like the one before, this one squealed as it shifted. I grimaced, hoping nobody was nearby, and poked my head up once I had enough room to do so.

  The hole opened into another dead end alleyway. I climbed out and returned the grate to its resting place. The smell of ash and burning wood was strong in the air now, and the smoke painting the sky was thicker as I looked up at it over the top of the buildings.

  I wasn’t exactly sure where the sewer path had spit me out in the Eastern Quarter, but based on how large the smoke column was now, the source of the fire wasn’t very far.

  Leaving the alley behind, I pushed into the crowded street, letting the flow of tired-looking faces carry me toward the fire. Mumbled conversations caught my ear as I walked, some of those I passed mentioning the way the guards had surrounded the burning building and tossed torches at it.

  As I moved through the crowd I took note of where I was and some of the weight on my heart slowly shifted, lifting. The buildings around me were familiar—I passed one of the small bakeries that served this part of the city, as well as a blacksmith’s shop that had been closed since before I’d awakened in this body. Despite recognizing the buildings, though, I knew I wasn’t near The Slumbering Drake, and as I rounded a large curve in the road the burning building came into view.

  It was large —one of the multi-housing structures that had become popular in recent years. Flames belched from the windows as something within the upper floors accelerated the flames, and the smoke grew darker. Screams erupted from somewhere inside and several members of the city guard stood, their backs turned to the inferno, watching the crowd with their spears held at the ready.

  I pushed through the crowd to get a closer look, and spotted several guards talking amongst themselves, their backs turned to the crowd. When they turned around a moment later I let out a breath.

  The man with the mustache—the one that had followed me to Ovali’s shop—stood in the middle of the group, relaying orders to those around him. I wasn’t sure why I had caught their attention out of everyone passing by them in the streets, or why they had gone through the trouble of following me as they had. But the warning… the fact that he was here in the middle of this… something about it all came together in my mind.

  For some reason he had expected me to care about this incident. Did that mean that the empire was watching me?

  More screams erupted from the building and I watched as an older looking woman crashed out of one of the upper floor windows, flames rippling across her body. She fell to the ground below. Shouts of shock rose from the crowd, drowning out the sound I knew would follow her fall. The sickening crunch of bones and flesh crashing into stone.

  My eyes scanned the rest of the building. Something within me screamed to save the people still trapped inside. Another part said it was a problem I couldn’t solve. Not without ending up trapped inside myself—or captured by the empire. Neither was an enticing outcome.

  I was turning to leave when I noticed him staring at me.

  My heart threatened to pound its way out of my chest, my fingers suddenly tightening into a fist as I tried to stop the shaking that exploded through my body.

  I met his gaze, the dark eyes staring at me across the distance, as if they could somehow single me out. I told myself there was no way he had noticed me.

  No possible way he could see me in the crowd.

  His lips twisted into a smile beneath the mustache that covered his face.

  dragons!