As the words left his mouth, he wished he could suck them back in. If she told anyone, word would get around that he’d been here. He hadn’t exactly been forbidden to come here, but lack of explicit permission to do something usually amounted to forbid-dance on Umbriel.
“Down there?” she said. “That’s amazing. What’s it like? How did you get here?”
“I flew here,” he said. “I thought everyone on Umbriel must know about that. Everyone in the kitchens seemed to.”
“You were in the kitchens?” A little tremor ran through her.
“Yes. Why?”
“Was it horrible? I’ve heard terrible things. My friend Kalmo takes grain to five of them, and he said—”
“Do you know how to reach the kitchens from here?” he interrupted.
“No, but I can always ask Kalmo.”
“Could you do that?”
“Now? I’m not sure where he is.”
“No, just ask him next time you see him. I have a friend that works there I’d like to talk to.”
“But then how will I tell you?”
“I’ll come back,” he said. “You can tell me when you’re usually here, and I’ll meet you.”
“Okay,” she said. “But—you have to do something for me.”
“What’s that?”
“Orchid shrimp. We almost never get to have them—our kitchen doesn’t use them much. Please?”
“I can do that,” he assured her.
“And you have to tell me about down there.”
“Next time,” he promised. “Right now I need to go.”
“Next time, then,” she said. “You can find me here every day about this time.”
“Good.” He paused uncomfortably. “And would you mind, ah, not mentioning me to anyone? I’m not sure I’m supposed to be up here.”
“Who would I mention? You haven’t told me your name.”
“Mere-Glim.”
“That’s a strange name. But then it would be, wouldn’t it? My name is Fhena.”
Glim nodded, not knowing what else to say, so he turned and reluctantly retraced his steps back down the tree, through the tunnel, and into the sump again.
But now he had a way out. If he could find Annaïg, if she had reproduced her flying potion.
There were still many ifs.
He went back down the Drop, but none of the sacs had changed color in the few hours he’d been gone, so he went quickly back to the shallows, because Wert had asked him to collect a few singe anemones—Wert was really supposed to do it, but the stingers couldn’t get through Glim’s scales, so the skraw had asked him to do it.
He went to the place in the shallows where they grew thickest, and found that area particularly messy with bodies. He tried to ignore them, as he usually did, but a familiar face caught his eye.
It was the woman from the kitchen, the one who had Annaïg. Qijne. Even in death her gaze was terrifying.
Suddenly frantic, he began searching through the corpses. They all wore the tattered remnants of the same uniform. What happened to kill them all? Some sort of accident? A mass execution?
He continued, each time fearing the next lifeless face would be Annaïg’s, but even after he went over them twice, she wasn’t there. But that didn’t mean anything. A carrion scorp or any of several large bottom feeders could have dragged her off.
He was about to begin a third search when a gleam caught his eyes, something in the sand.
He reached down and pulled it up—Annaïg’s magic locket.
He felt like something hot was vibrating in him when he got back to the skraw warrens. When he took Wert the anemones, he found him with Eryob, their overseer.
“You’re late,” Eryob said. His gaze moved to the anemones. Then to Wert. “Did you send him to do your work?”
“Wert does his job, and more,” Mere-Glim bristled. “I was just helping him out. Everything got done.”
Eryob’s bushy red eyebrows sank so low they nearly covered his eyes. “That’s not the point, skraw.”
“Well, enlighten me,” Glim snapped. “What is the point? And who are you to make it? You don’t inhale the vapors. You don’t pick around corpses or bring anyone up to be born. What does the sump need with you? Just leave us alone and everything will get done. In fact—”
He didn’t get to finish. Eryob lifted his fist and uncurled it, and black pain exploded in Glim’s head. His limbs spasmed and he toppled to the floor. It went on for a long time.
TWO
Heat woke her, suffocating heat wrapped around her body, burned into her lungs. She gasped and flailed; the air seemed incredibly heavy and murky. She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling only slick, wet skin.
She heard a whimper and then a strangled shriek. She made out a silhouette a few feet from her, revealed in the dim illumination from four fuzzy-looking globes of a dark amber color, one in each direction, all above her.
“Slyr?”
“Yes,” the frantic voice answered. “What’s happening? We’re being burned alive!”
Annaïg swung her feet down and found the floor, wincing at the heat of the stone against her soles. The air hurt to move through, too, especially when she found the vent in the floor it was coming out of. She jumped back with a shriek.
“It’s steam,” she said.
“Why? What are they doing to us?”