"We'll find him," Nestrix said.
"No, it's more than that," Tennora said. "He means to take hold of the dragonstaff." She explained the purpose of the dragonward and dragonstaff, and the plan that Dareun seemed to be following.
Veron slid the crossbow back into its harness. "Then we have a problem. He'll hide the boy, but he'll go to the mother to get the staff. If we stop him from getting the staff, we might not be able to find the boy. If we go after the boy, he may get the staff before we reach him."
"And we don't know how to get out of here," Tennora added. She looked over at Veron. "Unless…?"
Verori shook his head. "I'm lucky I found my way here. You don't want to know what I had to go through to find you."
"Yes, well, I owe you a favor," Tennora said.
Nestrix's eyes lit up. "A favor."
She sprinted over to the body of Ferremo Magli and started emptying his pockets and pouches. A palm-sized mirror, a waxy plug of scent, a small whetstone. "Oh come on," she muttered. "Don't have used them up."
"What in the Nine Hells are you looking for?" Tennora asked.
"Favor tokens," she said. "The taaldarax gives them to his lovacs to help them carry out his plans." She pulled his coin purse out from under his belt and upended it. A shower of coins-gold, silver, and copper-rained out. "Quickly! Find the coin that looks different!"
Tennora and Veron both dropped down beside her and started sifting through the coins. "What do they do?" Tennora said.
"They connect to the taaldarax's location. If the lovac needs to return to his master's lair, the favor token will take him."
Veron stopped and looked around. "Aren't we in his lair?"
"Don't be foolish," Nestrix said, still busily emptying pockets. "It's disgusting down here. He's not a swamp dragon. His temporary lair is either the seed hoard or somewhere near to it. He would have made sure the lovac had a way to get back to it."
Tennora was leaned close to the coins, running her fingers over the pieces, when she spotted it. The taaldarax' s favor was a gold coin a little bigger than a dragon piece and a little yellower. It was stamped with Draconic letters.
"Found it!" she cried plucking the coin from the pile. She handed it over to Nestrix. "How does it work?"
Nestrix turned the coin over in her hand, with a soft, strange smile. She looked up at Tennora and Veron. "Like this."
She spread her hand and the piece fell to the ground with a resounding chime. But when Tennora looked down at the floor to spot the coin, she saw they were no longer standing on cold, slick stones, but on a polished wooden floor. Tennora looked down at her hands and leathers, and at the body of Ferremo Magli who had come along with them. "That was-"
Nestrix held a finger to her lips and hissed.
They were standing in a small room with no windows. One door looked in on a bed with twisted sheets. The other had been thrown wide and led down a hallway. Nestrix slipped toward the second door, Tennora and Veron close behind.
Ahead of them a door slammed.
"He's here," Nestrix growled.
The hallway ended in a curtain, which Nestrix tore aside. Beyond was the antiquary's shop, still full of false treasures, still silent as a tomb.
Nestrix inhaled deeply. "He was here-not too long ago."
"How can you be sure?" Veron asked.
She looked back over her shoulder at him, one eyebrow arched in disbelief. "I'm a dragon," she said. "And he stinks like an alchemist's trash heap." She sniffed the air again. "He's not here anymore."
"No one's here," Veron said, waving a hand over the room. "Let's go. He can't be too far." He headed for the door, Nestrix following.
Something itched at the back of Tennora's mind as she looked around the room. Something had changed since she'd seen it last, but she couldn't put her finger on what. Instead, the sense skidded around in her thoughts, refusing to settle. After a moment, she started toward the door, still studying the room around her.
Just before the door, Nestrix stopped.
She sniffed the air, suddenly alert as a hound scenting its quarry. "Stop," she said. "He's still here."
"Dareun?" Tennora asked.
"No," Nestrix said. "The boy." She sniffed again. "Inks and sweets and soap." She looked at Tennora, her eyes lambent. "Fear."
Veron cursed. "Where? Are you sure?"
She gave him a withering look. "Of course I'm sure." She pushed past him into the maze of displays and cabinets, tasting the air.
Tennora followed her, watching as Nestrix tried to catch the scent of the boy again. When she turned back, her face was contorted with frustration.
"He is here," she said. "I can't… I can't find him."
"So we start looking," Tennora said. She turned toward the other half of the shop. Veron caught her by the arm.
"We should go after Dareun," he said softly. "We're chasing figments if we stay and rummage through this place."
"She says she smells him."
"And so what? There's still a very good chance she's plague mad." He let go of her arm. "That boy could be anywhere in this city. Or beyond."
Tennora started to retort, but when her eyes fell on a cabinet pushed up against the wall, her mouth shut.
Three days earlier, she had stood in front of that cabinet and had been startled out of her wits when a slinger's bullet shattered the glass.
Tennora pushed past Veron and started toward it.
The cabinet had since been hung with ornate metal doors that did not match the thick wooden body, and fitted with a beastly, complicated-looking lock.
"Nestrix!" she called. "Nestrix! This one! It's this one."
Nestrix sprinted across the shop to Tennora's side and sniffed. Her eyes widened. She rapped on the door.
Nothing.
"Get it open," she whispered.
The lock was heavy and made of the same ornate, layered brass as the doors. Tennora maneuvered herself underneath it and slid the picks up into the mechanism. The pins lay in a far more complicated pattern, and after a moment she pulled out another pick. "Hold this," she said to Veron, indicating the turning bar. "And twist it gently."
The delicate wires slid over one another, moving pins in tandem. A lock within a lock-but they were moving, slipping into their homes.
Something in the cabinet rustled. Veron gave her an alarmed look.
"You see!" Nestrix snapped.
"Hurry," he said.
Tennora ignored him, focusing on the mechanism, opening bit by meticulous bit with each fragile motion. Time seemed to stretch, seconds became hours or perhaps days, but eventually the last pin balanced on the end of her wire.
"Turn," she ordered Veron.
The lock popped and slid out of its latch, landing on the floor with a crack.
Antoum Mrays tumbled out of the cabinet-flushed, and damp with tears and sweat-and into Nestrix's arms. Nestrix grasped him fiercely and lowered him to the floor, smoothing back his damp hair.
Tennora made quick work of the shackles, and after a few songs, Antoum Mrays's eyes fluttered and opened.
"Mama?" he said. His eyes regained focus and grew fearful again as he realized that neither Nestrix not Tennora-nor certainly Veron-were his mother. His whole body went tense.
"It's all right, little man," Nestrix said, in what Tennora suspected was a soothing tone for her. "You're safe."
Antoum's wide-eyed stare didn't fade. "You said we were going to escape."
"And now we shall," Nestrix said. "We're out of the sewers, and now you need to tell us where you live."
"No!" Antoum said, sitting up. "That's where the dragon-man is going."
"Indeed," Nestrix said. "And we have to save your mama. You've been a very brave little man all this time, and now you have to be brave a little longer."
"We don't know how to find your mother's home, lad," Veron said. "We have to get there before the"-he glared at Nestrix-"dragon-man tricks her."