Chapter 69: Grace and Grime

I snapped my fingers in the air, sharp as a spark. “Dregan!” I called, dragging out his name like a lover’s sigh. “Pack up your lungs and that charming death wish of yours—you’re coming with me.”

He froze mid-puff, cigar sealed halfway to his lips, eyes narrowing in the way only a man who’s survived too many bad ideas can. “With you? Into what exactly?”

“The drainage tunnel of course,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I need someone small enough to fit through cramped spaces and morally bankrupt enough not to complain about the smell. Congratulations, darling, you tick both boxes.”

Dregan barked out a laugh that sounded like a dying kettle before bounding across the room to pick a rusted lantern from off the wall. “Ha! You really know how to flatter a man. Alright then, guess I’ll come along. But only ’cause I like watching you squirm when it stinks.”

“Oh please,” I scoffed. “I’ve endured worse odors. Ever share a cell with a man who thinks soap is a conspiracy?”

Before anyone else could volunteer—or more likely, protest—I turned on my heel and whistled low. The beastman stirred from his corner, muscles rippling from under his tattered loincloth as he straightened.

His ears flicked once at the sound, and then he lumbered after us with a rumbling growl that might have been affection, or maybe just hunger. Though with him it was often both.

“Come along now,” I cooed, patting his arm. “You’re our muscle for today. Try not to crush anything unless I tell you to.”

He made a sound somewhere between a snort and a purr. And saints preserve me, I was starting to enjoy it.

We slipped out of the warehouse and into the choking light of the courtyard. The streets beyond were alive, if you could call it that—a sprawling labyrinth of smoke, sweat, and ceaseless shouting.

We wove our way through the narrow passages, brushing shoulders with thieves and beggars, every pair of eyes trailing after us like hounds scenting fresh meat. I gave them my best grin—sharp, dangerous, the kind that promised pleasure or pain depending on my mood. Dregan, of course, continued puffing on his cigar, looking like a man who’d made peace with damnation long ago.

“Tell me,” I said as we passed a stall of rotting fruit, “does it ever strike you how many shades of despair this place comes in? I swear the Warden could start selling them like paint swatches.”

Dregan chuckled. “I bet you’d buy the whole palette.”

“Obviously,” I said. “I’m an aesthete, darling. Even misery should have style.”

The further we walked, the quieter it became. The clang of barter, the laughter edged with menace, the rhythmic hum of life in confinement—all of it dimmed, fading like a song losing its last notes to distance.

We emerged into a secluded corner of the courtyard—a wilted garden of sorts, if one were feeling charitable. The earth was dry and cracked, the flowers gray husks of their former selves. A few prisoners knelt among them, planting what could only be described as floral corpses, whispering to them like mourners.

The sight twisted something in my chest then, faint and uninvited. A small, traitorous ache. I used to know gardens like these—real ones, alive with scent and sunlight.

A memory stirred then. The memory of her laughter, the sound like wind through silken petals. I crushed it down before it could bloom. Sentimentality was a luxury we couldn’t afford right now.

I turned my gaze upward instead—to the hulking statue looming at the center of the garden, the High Warden’s likeness, carved from pure black obsidian. The thing towered over us, grotesquely grand, the kind of monument only a man deeply insecure about his legacy would commission.

I nudged Dregan with my elbow. “You think they got the proportions right? His hips seem a bit… generous.”

Dregan squinted up at it, smoke curling from the corner of his mouth. “Looks like he’s smuggling two barrels of ale under that robe.”

“Oh, bless him. A true visionary in symmetry and self-delusion.”

Our laughter echoed through the dead garden, drawing uneasy glances from the kneeling prisoners. I let them stare. After all, a little madness never fails to brighten the morning.

I clapped my hands once. “Alright, showtime. Beastie—” The beastman tilted his head at me, ears twitching. “—would you be a dear and move his radiant flatulence for us?”

He grunted once, then stepped forward. The prisoners scattered like frightened pigeons as he wrapped his arms around the statue’s base. For a moment, I thought it might resist him—the obsidian gleaming like a dare in the dim light. But then, with a crack and a groan of ancient stone, the statue shifted.

The beastman lifted it clean off its foundation and set it aside as gently as a man placing down a sleeping child. The other prisoners gawked, some crossing themselves, others muttering prayers under their breath.

I gave them a little wave, which only made them flinch harder.

Beneath where the statue had stood was a sewage lid, half-buried in grime. Dregan crouched beside it, setting down his lantern before whipping out a knife to pry at the edges.

With a final grunt, Dregan popped the lid free, and the stench that wafted out could’ve felled a mule. I recoiled instantly, pressing a sleeve to my nose. “Oh gods, what died down there?”

Dregan peered into the hole, grinning like a madman. “A bit of everything, probably.”

A ladder descended into the darkness below, its rungs slick with condensation and something I’d rather not identify. Water dripped rhythmically from somewhere deep within, echoing like a forgotten heartbeat.

“Well,” I said, leaning over the edge, “that’s foreboding.”

Dregan turned to me, one brow cocked. “Who goes first?”

“Obviously not me,” I said. “I’m far too valuable to risk dying from tetanus.”

He snorted. “You just don’t wanna ruin your boots.”

“Correct,” I said without shame. “Now be a dear and descend into hell for me.”

We stared at each other for a long moment before he sighed and muttered, “Fine, fine. Whatever you say your majesty.”

He gripped the ladder and began his descent, whistling tunelessly as he went. I waited until his curses faded into the darkness before turning to the beastman. “Stay here,” I said, tapping his chest. “Guard the hole. If anyone tries to follow, eat them.”

He barked once—a sound so sharp and guttural that the nearby prisoners actually jumped. “Good boy,” I said, patting his cheek. “We’ll be right back.”

And then, with as much grace as the situation allowed, I began to descend. The ladder creaked ominously beneath my weight, and the smell hit me full in the face—rot, sewage, and the usual despair. I gagged delicately. “Oh, gods, that’s vile. I’ve smelled corpses that were more inviting.”

From below, Dregan’s voice echoed up. “Oh quit complaining.”

When my boots hit the floor, filthy water splashed up to my ankles. The tunnel stretched ahead— a long, narrow artery of stone, the air thick and wet. Pipes lined the walls, sweating condensation, and the dim light of Dregan’s lantern flickered like a dying firefly.

I wrinkled my nose. “Lovely ambiance. Ten out of ten. Would recommend for a honeymoon.”

Dregan turned to me then, a slight smirk crossing his lips. “Thought you liked it dirty.”

I shot him a look sharp enough to shave with. “There’s a difference between dirty and disease-ridden.”

And then, without even a moment to spare, we began to walk, our steps sloshing lazily through the murky water.

I trailed a hand along the slick wall, grimacing as something warm and disturbingly soft squished under my fingertips. “Ugh,” I hissed, wiping it on Dregan’s sleeve before he could notice. “I think the tunnel just flirted with me.”

We marched on like that for a long while before reaching our first roadblock.

The tunnel split ahead into two directions, each equally uninviting. One curved left, the other right, both vanishing into the dark. “So,” I said, hands on my hips, “which way shall we go? The path of misery or the path of certain death?”

Dregan tilted his head, puffing thoughtfully on a fresh cigar, before pulling open his trousers. “I’m leaning a bit left today.”

“Ah, me too,” I said. “Must be something in the air.”

Without another word, we turned left.

For a while, the only sounds in the tunnel were our footsteps and the distant hum of machinery somewhere deep within the earth. The air grew thicker, heavier. My hair clung to my face, and I began composing a mental list of all the people I planned to blame for this venture once we inevitably died.

Dregan, on the other hand, was positively chipper. He whistled as he walked, the sound bouncing off the walls like mockery draped in velvet.

“You seem disturbingly happy for a man knee-deep in filth,” I said.

He shrugged. “You get used to it. The trick is not caring. About anything really. You stop worrying about tomorrow, stop regretting yesterday, and suddenly the stench doesn’t bother you anymore.”

“How philosophical,” I said dryly. “I didn’t realize enlightenment came with trench foot.”

He chuckled. “Call it my coping mechanism. Ever since the incident with the Boss, I figured I’d better learn to laugh at misery. Otherwise, it eats you alive.”

My ears perked at that. “The incident with the Boss, hmm? You mean the same one that left Freya ready to skin him alive and Brutus brooding like a tragic hero?”

Dregan’s grin dimmed a little. “You bet. I stayed behind with Freya then. Kept her alive the best I could.”

I arched a brow. “Mhm, how heroic. Unexpectedly so.”

“Oh, don’t sound so surprised,” he said, smirking faintly. “Even scoundrels have moments of decency. Or stupidity. Hard to tell the difference sometimes.”

I studied him for a moment—the crooked grin, the glint in his eye that never quite reached sincerity.

“Even then,” I said, voice carrying lazily through the tunnel. “I still can’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that you haven’t become a seething ball of rage like our dear Freya. I’d have thought betrayal and imprisonment would’ve left you just as tightly wound as a spring.”

He laughed, the sound echoing off the pipes. “Oh, I was angry once. Angry enough to chew through metal if it meant getting even. But that burns out, you know? Sooner or later, rage just gets a little boring.”

I cocked a brow. “Boring? You make vengeance sound like bad theater.”

“Exactly,” he said with a grin. “And everyone down here’s performing it. The big monologues, the threats, the vows to slit the Boss’s throat while he sleeps. Deep down they hate him all the same. Well, all except for Brutus. Gods, though it may not look it, the man hates him the most,” Dregan said cheerfully. “You should’ve seen it. The bastard actually tried to kill the Boss twice. Once with a crowbar. Once with his bare hands. Didn’t take, obviously—man’s built like divine irony.”

A short bark of laughter escaped me before I could stop it. “Twice? My, my. He really does take rejection poorly.”

Dregan grinned. “Yeah, but he’s got persistence. That’s gotta count for something.”

“Sure does,” I said, still smiling.

He bellowed out another laugh, then suddenly paused, his gaze flicking to something up ahead. “Ah, right there!” he said, pointing toward the wall, “That pipe look a little off to you?”

I followed his finger. There—one of the thicker pipes near the corner had a section of metal that didn’t quite match. The surface around its valve gleamed faintly different, like it had been cut, pried open, and slotted back into place.

My heart gave a traitorous little flutter. “Jackpot!” I murmured, stepping closer.

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