Red Hood's Revenge

road, surrounded by a stone wall. Men with curved swords stood unmoving at the gate, shaded only by the mulberry trees that grew alongside the road. Armor of overlapping metal rectangles, each the size of a playing card, covered the men from shoulder to mid-thigh.
    The wall was little taller than the guards, topped by iron spikes. The mansion beyond was pure Arathean, with no sharp angles anywhere to be seen. The stone blocks fit together so cleanly the entire building appeared to have been cut from a single piece of orange sandstone.
    The broad central structure was three stories, with a narrow tower in the back that rose twice as high. Secondary wings stretched forward from either side like arms reaching to encircle all who approached.
    A small, circular balcony jutted out from the center of the building. Windows were thin but plentiful. Snow saw no glass, so it might have been possible to sneak in that way, if not for the difficulties of scaling the walls in the middle of the day.
    “Rajil will have more men inside the doors,” Talia said.
    “Human guards are the least of your worries.” Roudette pointed through the gate at the long, oval pool in front of the building. “Water nymphs. Three of them. They can’t stray too far from their fountain, but if they catch you, they’ll drag you under and drown you.”
    By now, the two guards at the front gate were starting to pay attention to them. Talia stepped to the side of the road, into the thin shade of what smelled like a bath-house. “There will be guards around back as well, and the grounds don’t offer much in the way of concealment.”
    “Where’s the garden?” Snow asked.
    “Atop the central roof.” Talia cupped her eyes against the sun. “If you move back, you’ll be able to see the green of the trees peeking out over the walls on the roof.”
    “Could Snow’s magic get us in?” Danielle asked. “What if you transformed us into birds?”
    Snow laughed. “Have you ever flown before, Princess? Even if Roudette takes off that filthy cape long enough for me to cast the spell, it takes a long time to master wings. One wrong move and you’ll dash your brains against a wall.” She peered at the mansion, squinting until she discerned the ripple of fairy magic. “There are magical protections as well.”
    “I was afraid of this.” Talia started back down the street, away from the mansion.
    “Afraid of what ?” Snow demanded. “Don’t tell me you’re giving up.”
    Talia reached the intersection and glanced about, brows low. “When I was in Jahrasima, my . . . friends introduced me to other ways into various buildings. I was hoping to avoid them, but the sewers—”
    “Arathea has sewers?” Danielle asked.
    Talia made a face. “Another gift of the fairies. The lake circles Jahrasima, but there are a number of smaller reservoirs below the city. Hundreds of tunnels circulate clean water to the wells. Others carry waste to the edge of town, to be used as fertilizer on the farms.”
    “I’m not breaking into a mansion smelling like sewage,” Snow said. “Can’t we go in through the wells?”
    “Most wells are public.” Talia led them past a brown building that smelled like a bakery. “Even at midday, we’d never get in without being seen. The sewers are hidden away, out of sight. They’ll attract less attention.”
    They ducked into an alley between the bakery and a butcher shop. Talia knelt beside a stone grate, the holes carved into the shape of a flower with oval petals around a central circle. The edges were stained a rusty brown.
    Roudette wrinkled her nose. “Did I mention one of the gifts of the wolfskin is a strong sense of smell?”
    Talia grabbed one side of the grate. “Roudette?”
    Roudette growled deep in her chest, but she crouched to grab the other side. Together they wrenched the stone up and moved it to one side.
    Snow tried one last time. “How do we know this will lead into the raikh’s mansion? She wouldn’t want a sewer grate within her own home.”
    “She’ll have her own well,” Talia said. “The sewers will lead us to the reservoir.”
    Snow blanched. “You mean the tunnels are all interconnected? Drinking water and sewage? What about the mist in the church? Please don’t tell me we were being sprayed with—”
    “The wells are clean,” Talia assured her. “As pure as fairy magic can make them. The reservoir feeds the sewers, but the flow only goes in one direction. Come on, before someone