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Nick crouched in a laneway behind the council chamber, waiting for a cloud to slide across the moon. He hadn’t sneaked out the drain in the downstairs bathroom since first arriving in Auremos, but he had to find some evidence before he could tell anyone that Julian had blackmailed Cal. If he didn’t have evidence, it would be Cal’s word against Julian’s. Cal was an exceptional fighter, but Nick doubted he could hold his own before the Auremos Council. It wasn’t a trial that concerned Nick the most, though. It was the knowledge that Julian had the power and means to make Cal disappear for good.
The moonlight vanished, throwing the plaza into muted shades of grey and brown. Nick sprinted to Valerius’ office window, slipped his belt buckle into the gap, and flipped the latch. This time, he was wearing a uniform that fit, so he didn’t have to contend with pants that threatened to fall down. He pulled himself over the sill, dropped onto the carpet, shut the window, and went to the room Julian had taken him to on his first night in Auremos.
Outside the office, he paused. Someone was inside. He could hear quiet footsteps on the stones and saw faint candlelight seeping beneath the door. With bated breath, he peered through the keyhole. A Bandála soldier was bent over the desk and scrutinising its surface. Nick didn’t need to see past the straight brown hair to know who it was. Grinning, he pushed the door open. Artemis whipped around, drawing a knife from her belt.
‘God, Nick. You scared me half to death.’
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, shutting the door.
She returned her knife to its sheath. ‘Looking for evidence to use against Julian.’
‘That’s why I’m here too.’
Her intense gaze searched his face. ‘Aren’t you angry with Cal?’
‘I was, for about half an hour. But Julian didn’t give him much of a choice.’
‘You are so...’ She tilted her head. ‘Unpredictable.’ He caught a trace of her jasmine scent as she brushed past him and ducked beneath the desk.
‘I think I might be onto something,’ she said. He heard a soft click and a section of the wooden surface lifted to reveal a hidden compartment.
‘Wow. Good job, Artemis.’
She beamed at him, and for a moment all he could do was stare.
‘This is interesting,’ she said, lifting out a leather-bound document. She scanned the writing. ‘It’s a Bandála reassignment order for the aqueducts, dated two weeks ago and signed by Rayámina. I wonder why Julian would keep it hidden.’
Footsteps echoed across the chamber. Artemis shoved the reassignment order back into the secret compartment, Nick blew out the candle, then they both dived under the desk. Firelight lit up the room, this time from a flaming torch. A large shadow loomed up the wall. Nick heard a book slide from a shelf and fingers thumb the pages. Parchment rustled as it was unfolded.
‘Here’s a reassignment order for the Bandála contingent at the aqueducts. I need that whole section of wall cleared.’
Nick and Artemis looked at one another.
‘Julian,’ Nick mouthed, and Artemis nodded.
A murmur drifted from the corridor, but Nick couldn’t hear the words.
‘I’ll need three hours,’ Julian said. ‘Once the Bandála have moved off the wall, you hold onto that reassignment order and wait for me to return.’ There was a short silence, then Julian asked, ‘Do you smell that? It’s some kind of flower. Jasmine, perhaps.’
Artemis sniffed her hair and shut her eyes, as if telling herself off.
The person in the corridor muttered something.
‘Yes, we need to hurry,’ Julian said.
Footsteps faded and the door creaked shut.
‘What do you think Julian’s up to?’ Artemis whispered.
Nick crawled out from under the desk. ‘I have no idea, but I’m going to find out.’
When she didn’t emerge, he leaned down. ‘Are you coming?’
‘One minute.’ She pulled a small metal latch on the underside of the desk and the secret compartment opened again. She scrambled out, grabbed the old reassignment order, and closed the lid.
‘Wait, Artemis. We can’t take that.’
‘We have to. If we’re sprung tonight, we’ve got nothing. Julian will destroy any evidence that we might be able to use against him, and we won’t get another opportunity to return.’
Nick nodded. ‘Alright. But let’s hide it where no one will find it.’
‘The old governor’s house. Everyone avoids it because they think it’s haunted.’
‘Okay.’
They climbed out Valerius’ office window and jogged through the city to the crumbling basalt building in the eastern quarter. After they scaled the wall, Artemis tugged a leather satchel out from under a rock and used the thin metal tools to pick the lock on the back door. Once inside the house, Artemis tossed the reassignment order onto a high shelf.
‘That’ll do for now. We’ll come back for it later.’
She buckled the lock picking toolkit onto her belt. Nick raised his eyebrows.
‘We’re going to need it,’ she said.
They hurried out to the eastern wall and hid inside the foyer of a crumbling apartment block. The aqueducts soared above their heads, and the huge stone arches supporting the water channels cast long moon shadows across the houses.
‘Incredible,’ Nick breathed.
‘This is the most heavily guarded section of wall.’ Artemis pointed to the fortifications above them. ‘The top tier of the aqueducts always has four soldiers stationed at either side. There’s another six or so posted nearby.’
‘Not quite what I meant, but good to know.’ Nick scanned the wall. ‘I can’t see anyone up there. Julian’s reassignment order has cleared the way.’
‘Except for that other soldier he had with him,’ Artemis said.
‘How are we going to follow Julian?’
‘We can use the lower tier. It’s never guarded because it’s so dangerous.’
‘Oh.’ Nick hesitated then asked, ‘How dangerous?’
‘We have to climb around a deep pit to reach the opening.’
‘You’re kidding.’
She smiled and shook her head.
‘Crap.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘Alright. Let’s get this over with.’
Keeping low, they darted across the street, crept into an empty guardhouse, and headed up the spiral stairs. Three storeys above the street, Artemis stopped at a small door, drew out the lock picking tools, and inserted two thin metal sticks into the keyhole. Nick glanced up and down the stairwell, listening for footsteps. A loud click made him jump.
‘We’re in,’ Artemis said.
They stepped into a narrow corridor, and Artemis locked the door behind them. Then she squeezed past Nick and led the way down the passage. Up ahead, he heard a rushing noise like a waterfall. The corridor ended at a wooden balcony overlooking a vast, black chasm. To their right, up high, was an archway – the opening to the lower tier of the aqueducts. A smooth film of water gushed past an iron portcullis and disappeared into the abyss below.
‘Oh my god,’ Nick whimpered.
Artemis walked along a rickety wooden platform to a weight and pulley system that Nick supposed worked the portcullis. A wooden ladder was bolted to the chasm wall, leading up to the aqueduct. Some of the rungs were missing.
‘Do you know how deep the pit is?’ Nick asked, staring down into the hole.
‘I’ve never been down there, but I’ve heard that the underground reserves are so big you can’t see the other side of them.’
She winched the portcullis open then clambered up the ladder. Nick drew an unsteady breath, grasped the first rung, then the second, then the third. His palms were sweaty, making it difficult for him to grip the wood. He felt for the ladder rungs with his feet. He didn’t want to glance down and see the blackness below.
‘Be careful when you step out onto the channel,’ Artemis said. ‘The current’s strong. Keep hold of the ladder.’
Nick staggered as the water pushed against his boots, nearly sweeping his feet from under him. If he lost his footing now, he’d slide over the edge and plunge into the blackness below. The thought made him shudder. He grabbed onto an arch support before letting go of the ladder, and followed Artemis along the channel. The water reached halfway to their knees, and flowed so fast that they struggled to move any quicker than a walk. As they got closer to the far side, the slope of the mountain rose up to meet the aqueducts until the ground was within jumping distance. Artemis swung off the side and dropped into a crouch on the dry leaves. Nick landed beside her, his boots squelching.
‘Can you see which way Julian went?’ he asked.
She searched the ground and pointed to a trail of disturbed leaves. They tracked Julian along the folds of the hill to a stream, then into a gully where a waterfall hissed over the cliffs and plunged into a dark pool.
‘This is Blackrock Falls,’ Artemis whispered.
Nick remembered the map hidden in his bedroom and tilted his head to see if he could hear the song gate, but all he heard was the roar of water. Artemis grabbed his arm and pulled him down as Julian stepped into the moonlight on the other side of the stream. They crept through the trees and slithered between a tumble of jagged boulders next to the waterfall.
Julian stood with his back to the waterfall, watching the cliff on the north side of the gorge. For several minutes, nothing happened. Then a man with hands gloved and face masked in black detached himself from the night and abseiled into the gully. When he reached the bottom, he shook the rope to loosen it from its anchor, and it slumped to the ground. Once he’d looped the rope across his chest, he approached Julian. He was a tall man with a powerful stride and sweeping hazel gaze that seemed to take in every detail of his surrounds. Nick went rigid. He’d seen those eyes once before and dreamed about them many times since.
Alexander.
Chilling fear crept over Nick, and he rose to his knees to get a better look at the assassin. Artemis snatched him into a headlock, with a hand clamped over his mouth.
‘You can’t face him unarmed, Nick. You won’t stand a chance,’ she muttered in his ear.
He tried to reply that he wasn’t stupid enough to step into the open, but her chokehold only tightened till white sparks danced across his vision.
‘If you go out there, Alexander will kill you. Do you hear me?’
He went limp, nodding. Her grip loosened. He rolled away from her, gulping air and blinking to regain his focus.
‘Shit, Artemis! I wasn’t going to jump out. I just wanted to get a look at him, that’s all.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Oh. Sorry.’
Rubbing his neck, he wriggled farther away from her and peered through a gap in the boulders. The roar of the waterfall masked Alexander and Julian’s voices, so Nick watched their body language. Julian held his hands out in an appeal. Alexander stood with his arms folded across his chest, shaking his head from time to time. After what appeared to be a tense, one-sided negotiation, Julian saluted in a manner Nick had never seen before and walked away. Alexander stayed by the waterfall, his steady gaze following Julian as if he was tracking a moving target. Nick half expected Alexander to swing the bow off his shoulder and shoot Julian in the back. But he didn’t. He just waited until Julian was well out of sight before turning around and walking into the waterfall.
Nick blinked. He searched Artemis’s face for an explanation but she looked as astonished as he felt. Before she could stop him, he scooted around the boulders and ducked under the waterfall. He shook the water from his eyes and saw a cavern several metres deep, yawning into the mountainside. It sloped upwards and ended at a sheer rock wall.
Wiping her dripping fringe aside, Artemis asked, ‘Did you see where he went?’
‘No. He’s gone.’
‘Gone? How can he be gone?’ She turned in a circle. ‘There must be another way out.’
An icy breath passed over Nick’s skin.
‘Do you feel that?’ Artemis asked, shivering.
They went to the back wall of the cavern. Artemis ran her hands across the stones then pointed out a section of the wall. Nick caught the shift of air on his fingers before he noticed long cracks in the rock. When he stepped back, he could see the rough outline of a door.
‘Why would Alexander abseil into the valley then leave through a secret passage?’ he asked.
‘He probably doesn’t want Julian knowing that it’s here. See if you can find a keyhole or handle.’
They studied the door for a good few minutes, running their palms over the smooth rock till Nick’s fingers tripped over another set of grooves.
‘Got it,’ he said.
He prised the edges till one side popped out to reveal a metal handle underneath. When he pulled the handle, the door swung open without a sound.
‘That’s not a good sign,’ Artemis murmured. ‘The hinges are oiled. That means someone comes here often enough to maintain it.’
A narrow tunnel burrowed into the mountainside. Nick’s damp dreadlocks tickled his neck as a gust of Antarctic wind blew into the cavern. It went straight through his wet clothes, making his teeth chatter. An iron frame reinforced the back of the door, and in the tunnel wooden beams supported the roof.
‘If the Bandála knew about this tunnel,’ Artemis said, ‘they’d have made sure it was at least guarded, if not destroyed.’
Nick swung the door shut. ‘We have to tell David.’