Wystwood

52. Copper rungs and sage

The sunlight split into shards around their heads as Ada and the bandits peered into the hole where the compass had been. It dropped down like a shaft, darkness delving deeper than their eyes could fathom. Copper rungs were fastened down one side, the first hold just visible beneath the space where the word Este had once been engraved.

"Well," said Lark, glancing between the ladder and the bell, "that seems to have, erm, done the trick."

"Indeed. A mysterious hole leading to who knows where or what." The sarcasm dripped from Raeph's lips. "Brilliant work, Lark. A truly outstanding job."

Lark glared back at him. "Well, considering all you seem to do these days—or should I say nights?—is creep around the city in dead darkness, you can venture down there first."

"Oh no. You rung the bell. I'm sure whoever's at the bottom will be expecting you." Raeph gave a mock-flourish of his hand. "After you, I insist."

"Have you seen my ankle?" Lark thrust one boot out and pulled up his trouser leg. "It looks like a bloody plum!"

It did not, Ada thought, look all too much like a plum. Although it had certainly been bloodied. Bruises bloomed around his ankle, their centres shaded green and gruesome, as though he had landed badly from a long fall.

"Why not Ada?" continued Lark after Armestrong had batted his boot away. "She's the one who brought us here."

Ada hadn't actually been the one to bring them there, only the one to suggest it. She doubted she would even be able to navigate her way to Wysthaven's tower from the pavilion, despite it piercing up into the sky three times the height of any other building. 

But before she could point that out, Raeph responded, "And if she falls from the first rung? She could scarcely handle the courtyard wall, let alone a ladder into an abyss."

This time, Ada did cut in. "I handled it just fine," she said, her glower matching his. "Just like I handled saving your life last night, in case you've already forgotten."

She turned away from Raeph before his eyes could muster their shadows, and then crouched down, prepared to hoist herself onto the ladder. The arches surrounding them seemed to stoop closer, drawn to their warmth and their hushed voices. The bell tolls had groaned out, and the stone compass' grinding had been the last noise left to muffle their voices. Though now that was gone too, either having reached its lowest point, or fallen too far for them to hear.

Ada tried not to dwell on that second option as she swung one foot into the hole. But before she could turn, a faint glimmer caught her eyes. It glinted off a copper rung, a metre or two down, like firelight across a candelabra. But then came another, and another, their glow gleaming against the rungs until the metal appeared molten in the darkness.

A flame flickered to life opposite Ada, nestled into a nook between two stones only now made visible with new light. It had kindled without the need of a match, though the thin bundle of herbs it glowed around was decidedly on fire. The flame was dim, enclosed and unthreatening, with a bitter scent that drifted around the ladder. Sage; Ada breathed it in and remembered the ribbon-tied bouquets her grandmother used to hang across her hearth.

She was still staring at the burning bundle when the light lifted something else from the darkness, and Ada startled away, lifting her foot back onto the cobblestones as she stumbled to Armestrong's side. Climbing up the copper rungs was a fae woman, whose pointed face was tilted up towards them, her dark hair scraped back into a tight braid. She reached the final hold and hoisted herself up through the hole.

Nobody spoke. The woman didn't appear surprised to find them there, which Ada supposed made sense if Lark's bell-ringing idea was correct, but her brow furrowed into lines as she looked from one bandit to the next. Her eyes lingered on Raeph, lips curling back and fingers fisting in the air. She didn't offer any greeting, so instead Armestrong took a step forward, pausing a second before extending her arms and revealing Min's curled body.