Free The Bone Palace by Amanda Downum

Ciaran asked as he braided his long dark hair.
    “I’ll add it to my expense account.”
    He leaned in to kiss her; his mouth tasted of mint and cumin. “For luck,” he said with a wink.
    Ciaran might never swear devotion to her, but he was warm and pleasant company. Friends for sixteen years, lovers on and off for many of those—sometimes his company was almost pleasant enough to make her forget the loneliness of the last three years.
    “In that case—” She pulled him back and kissed him again.
    They entered the city’s cloacae through an old service door built into the Garden’s wall, rain splashing the cobbles around them and running cold fingers through Isyllt’s upswept hair. Rust clogged the lock, but the key Khelséahad given her finally clicked. Hinges shrieked as the metal door swung open and the effluvium of the tunnels wafted around them. Ciaran’s long nose wrinkled.
    “Are you certain this is wise?”
    She grinned. “No. That’s why you came with me.”
    Darkness swallowed them as the door swung shut. Isyllt’s witchlight glistened on damp walls and slime-slick stairs leading under the city. The roar of water echoed through the stairwell as they descended. Sewage ran in open channels, while cleaner water sluiced through great pipes on its way to taps and fountains.
    They followed the narrow walkway beside the canal, breathing shallowly against the stench. The rain helped, pouring down from gutters, sweeping the city’s waste toward the river Dis. The ledges on either side were perhaps a man’s height across, and the canal thrice that width, spanned by narrow stone arches every few dozen yards. Water churned black and frothing an armspan from their feet. Its noise was deafening—they would never hear anyone approaching.
    Not that the vrykoloi would make a sound if they didn’t want to. But for all that some Erisinians hung charms against vampires and told bloody and improbable stories, there had been no real trouble between the humans and the underdwellers for generations. The ancient Severoi kings—generally thought of as sorcerous and too tolerant of demons—had brokered a truce, granting the vampires freedom in the undercity in exchange for the safety of the citizens. Or at least only discreet murders. Ghosts and demons and ordinary human killers were much more common a threat in the city.
    So why rob a royal crypt? Impossible to imagine itwould go unnoticed, or that the Crown wouldn’t take action. She hoped the vrykoloi’s opinion of the truce hadn’t changed.
    They climbed a rusty ladder down to the next level of sewers. Isyllt had no idea how far the tunnels truly sprawled. Generations of kings and city councils had added to them, and most maps conflicted. Every so often a new sewer line or enlarged crypt would open into a strange tunnel that no one could account for. Hopefully the vrykoloi or other mystery diggers knew what they were about, and sections of the city wouldn’t collapse into the ground one day.
    The din of water faded as they climbed lower and the tunnel walls roughened. Moisture dripped from the ceilings, splashing in puddles and echoing along low corridors. The air grew heavy with moss and rust and stone, a cloying taste over Isyllt’s tongue. The weight of earth around them was enough to silence even Ciaran, and she strained her ears for any sound of company. The conjured light bobbed at her shoulder, threw their shadows wild and flickering against the walls.
    Kiril had showed her this way years ago, while they crawled through the tunnels in search of other quarry. In the days when they worked together, wading through death to the knees. The vrykoloi must surely have heard them coming by now—
    She never heard a sound, even as a white shape stepped out of the darkness in front of them. Breath hissed between her teeth and her boots scraped stone as she stumbled back, right hand reaching over her shoulder. Behind her, Ciaran cursed softly.
    Witchlight glittered in