Encountering a tall grate along the left-hand wall, Risens knew he had reached his destination. The thin metal bars were spaced widely, though the openings were still too thin for him to slip through. A narrow iron door was set into a thick metal frame in its center, and he picked the lock that held it shut. The rusted metal grate screamed, granting his passage.

  Risens’ heart raced as the noise reverberated through the tunnels. He remained frozen in place like a statue guarding the hidden entrance to some vile-smelling dungeon, waiting for any response to the unintended racket—only the muffled sloshing of liquid.

  Chiding himself for the lapse in judgment, he squeezed through the narrow opening, carefully treading the darkness of the fetid path onward. A few dozen meters in, he reached the first of the traps. There was little light save for the faint reflections of a distant source, but to his trained eyes, the shimmering thread pulled taut across the tunnel was clear.

  Ducking cautiously under the nearly invisible tripwire, he noted the devious spike set into what appeared to be natural divots in the wall. Nine in total were staggered, both in height and positioning, spread across several meters. Had the trap been sprung, it would have been nigh on impossible to avoid all of the barbs. He expected each was poisoned to some degree, though he’d never tested the theory. He had a mind to trigger it, to frustrate the will of whoever had set it, though he expected its response would not be with spike alone. No doubt the warning would be heard throughout Excelsior.

  With a shake of his head, he continued through the sewer. Over the following few hundred paces, he stepped over, ducked under, and dodged all manner of traps. He honored the charred sacrifices of the rats that had given away the fiery pressure plate that would have scalded his skin at best. He left their crispy, ashen corpses as a reminder upon his possible return.

  It was the pale blue glow of the night filtering into the tunnel ahead that alerted him to the next change. The awful stench that had assaulted his senses had noticeably changed as the light increased. At first, only hints of a floral aroma left a lingering note, though it swelled with every step. Risens slowed his pace. The darkened silhouette of another gate rose in his path. At this speed, the slight squishing of his feet on the grimy stone was disguised beneath the gurgling and slapping of the sewage.

  Peering through the gate, he noted that a pair of tall windows diffused the moon and stars’ glow. The engineers of Excelsior, in a never-ending quest to keep their pampered nobility from being forced to deal with the foul realities of life, had hidden the entrance in a small, conspicuous building along the center of the rear wall. The floral scent—clearly mageEnhanced by some means—mixed with the shite to form a smell like death itself. So strong was it that he could taste it on the back of his mouth with each shallow breath.

  That the exit wasn’t trapped was of little surprise to him, though he anticipated he wouldn’t make it through the small building without encountering at least one. The lock that prevented his egress here was on the opposite side of the bars, though that in itself presented no challenge. It was only moments before he hefted the heavy steel lock from the catch.

  Risens was, however, surprised that the bars and the lock were as clean as they were, though the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. To the best of their ability, every facet of this chamber had been scrubbed, likely with regularity. The hinges of the gate here were free from rust, looking almost as if they’d been greased in the recent past.

  Slipping into the chamber, Risens found himself in a pit roughly a few meters wide and perhaps a head taller than himself. The ladder built into the wall was also astonishingly clean, for which he was incredibly thankful. He ascended and found the room above to be not much larger than the pit below. A walkway of a meter or so stretched out around three sides of the opening. Set against the wall of the grounds, the structure had one side of polished stone, while the others were simple, carefully laid brick, with a pair of tall windows on either side. A few levers, likely to control the flow into the tunnel, sat beside the single exit, but beyond that, the small room contained nothing of note.

  Moving quickly to the door, he reached out for the handle, drawing his hand back quickly as the tingle of magic registered in his fingers. He knew in a heartbeat that he’d at last found one of the interior wards. The traps set in the tunnel were clearly designed to kill those seeking entry, but these would likely be purely auditory in response.

  Either way, he had no intention of his presence being made known.

  Forgoing the expected exit, he turned to the windows that dominated much of the wall on both sides of the chamber. Through their lightly frosted panes, he could see neither tripwires nor feel the residual buzz of magic that stained the airnear the door. The lock was a simple metal twist, though it showed clear signs of age. One look at the rusted hinges convinced him that it hadn’t been opened in years.

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  A quick circuit of the windows revealed a similar level of corrosion on all the hinges. It seemed that disuse would be just as strong a betrayer as alarm bells. Likewise, smashing the window would be far too loud and far too easy to note, even in the darkness. Perhaps he could cut out the entire panel. Risens reached for one of his steel blades, forgoing the inevitable insults if he dared use the Ravens Talons for such a menial, bloodless task.

  He stopped and shifted his hand to his hidden breast pocket instead. He pulled out a vial of the healing salve he’d collected before leaving Tawny’s clinic. Their conversations continued to prove informative, and if this worked, invaluable.

  Risens had used lard and grease to silence the protest of hinges in the past, though he’d never contemplated using the excruciating salve. He gritted his teeth as the potent concoction alerted him to the presence of a small scratch on his finger. Although the trivial wound healed rapidly, the pain ebbed. Rubbing the salve on the hinges produced an equally surprising reaction.

  Where the healing salve touched the rust, it hissed softly, producing a thin tendril of steam. The rough, bubbled corrosion dried and cracked, flaking off, leaving only the metal, tarnished by age. Dripping a small measure onto both hinges and the latch, he watched as the corrosion that had built up over years of disuse and exposure to the damp, fetid air of the sewer released its hold.

  “Tawny, you’re a genius,” he whispered to himself as he gently tested the lock. Beyond the slight jingle of the loose metal as it rapped softly against the glass, it moved silently.

  Fresh night rushed into the small building, and he breathed deeply. Then, hidden in the shadows of the night, he slipped out of the open window and dropped gently into the bushes half a story below.

  The progress of the patrols that circled the walls was simple to follow. With a mageLight in hand, each shone like a beacon as they followed their predetermined track. The cone of light that stretched out before them served as a clear marker for their vision and an even more explicit warning to Risens.

  He shook his head at the relative absurdity of the behavior. For one tasked with protecting the charges within during the darkness of the night, destroying one’s own vision was like breaking one’s own blade before stepping into a sword fight. It might work to quell the adventurous noble bent on some sort of nighttime debauchery, yet it was laughable to any seasoned denizen of the night.

  A few hundred meters away, the rear of the main building was partially illuminated by the lights burning on its elaborate facade, and even with those lights, there were more than enough shadowed gaps for him to find easy access.

  The attention to detail on the exterior of the wall, the smoothed stone, the vicious traps, all had seemingly been abandoned within the walls for the sake of opulence. Even from afar, he knew the decorative columns and wall would provide ready handholds for him to access the upper levels.

  There was no straight path from where he’d exited to the main building. The tent was likely a temporary addition, erected for some event in the coming days. With the moonlight bathing the open grounds between his position and the structure, it would be too risky to make the trek in the open. He was skilled, though he’d fallen into far too many pitfalls over the past several days. With the advent of his Brands, the discovery of the Roost, and the attempts on his life, the distractions had almost cost him his life.

  There were times when he felt less of the King’s Rightmaker and more of the amateur, beaten, molded into the killer he was today.

  To his right, too far off to be an immediate concern, an unexpectedly large group of guards patrolled the interior of the grounds, the wide lances of their mageLights combing the surrounding gardens. Remaining here in the shadows was an option, but it would leave him exposed if any ventured toward the concealed entrance to the sewer. Through the trees on the periphery of the yard would likely be the most secure route.

  Though he was in no rush to complete his task—there were still days left before he was expected to deliver his report to the King—Risens would finish his quest this night. This was a mission of stealth, not destruction. Finesse was needed over the blade.

  A narrow track ran along the edge of the wall, lined with reeds and snaking gently along the sloping edge of the pond. Beyond, several benches were spaced evenly between low rows of flowering hedges. Following the shadowed path, Risens slowed as he entered the grove nestled in the corner of the walls.

  Easing under the cover of the trees, he paused behind the broad, knotted trunk of an oak. He was lost from the view of the guards patrolling above, yet there was no telling if any lurked inside the stand. The paved stone pathway curved into the darkness, following the wavering edge of the water. Several guards passed the sewer entrance without raising any alarm. Their path carried them around the interior of the pond, opposite where he’d slipped into the woods.

  Risens noted a sound—a low, yet sporadic moaning that pulled through the trees. At first, he thought it was the distorted whispering of the wind, yet the night around him was still. Easing into the woods, the noises became clear. Peaking around the edge of a tree, he located the source.

  A pair of wine bottles lay empty on their sides, their accompanying glasses drained too of their liquid. Likely entwined in forbidden carnal pleasure, a young couple had abandoned their inhibitions. A young man reclined on a bench, his pants around his ankles, while the young lady hovered over him, her dress covering most of his body. Risens was about to sneak by, to leave the lovers to their escapades, when an erratic, passionate spasm of the man’s leg sent one of the empty goblets flying through the air.

  The sound of the glass shattering on the stone ripped like thunder across the grounds, and the lights of the patrolling guards shifted directly toward the trees.