Morgan takes one of the rifles lying about, rips the bayonet off, removes the powder and ammunition, turning it into a makeshift crutch for John. I grab one of the flintlocks and a lantern, helping John walk as Morgan leads down the sewers.
The lantern swings low in my hand, casting long shadows along the walls as we move. John limps beside me, leaning heavily on the makeshift crutch. His breathing is shallow, trying to hide his pain, but I can hear it in the way he grits his teeth.
Morgan walks ahead of us, muttering to himself. The sewer just spirals, endlessly coiling. We've taken so many turns that I've lost count. I don't know if we're closer to the harbor or deeper into some ancient grave.
None of us speaks for a long time. The silence isn't quiet. It's swollen with breath and dripping with condensation. Eventually, I broke it: "How old are you?" I ask John.
He exhales hard. "Nineteen," he manages to say. His gaze is locked toward the ground, trying to see where he's stepping.
"I thought marines had to be twenty?" I murmur.
"They do," he replies. "But the recruiters didn't check for my age. They knew my father, and he wouldn't send a young man to them if he weren't of age."
"And you aren't?"
"No."
"Then why'd you enlist?"
John glances at me, his face full of certainty. "Because I didn't want to be near that drunkard any longer. I figured shooting and sailing would be a better life than being stuck with a drunken blacksmith."
John leans into me harder as we take a bend. His breath hitches, but he doesn't complain. He hasn't complained about anything so far.
Morgan pauses ahead of us, muttering to himself audibly. "This bloody thing coils more than a serpent's guts." He looks back, turning his gaze toward the two of us.
"You, lad," he says. "Uh, John? That seems right. How do you read this damn map?"
"They're supposed to twist," John replies. "I was told that the sewers were made in such a way to deter thieves from using them. We have entire maps of potential hideouts and practice preemptively sieging them."
"So you're saying we're not done with your lot?
"No," John continues. "They've probably found the other you've slaughtered."
John and I move closer to Morgan as John tries to get a better look at the map. He gestures to shift the light as he reads. "Well, we entered from here," John points out, tracing the map, muttering the number of turns we took.
"There's another fork just ahead," John eases his weight from my shoulder, steadying himself on the broken rifle. He squints at the parchment, seeing our choices. "Left should trend north toward the old ballast chamber. They'll open close to the tide tunnels. If we're lucky."
Morgan grunts. "I haven't had the Saint's luck since I arrived. But might as well try, we don't have much of a choice."
Morgan steps off and leads us. I keep pace with John, as every step he takes sends ripples ahead of the lantern glow.
"Does it hurt?" I nod at his leg.
"Like being kicked by an ass," he says. "But having a useless leg is better than being dead."
***
We both become quiet for a moment, focusing only on our steps. But I couldn't help notice John's glare at me. Eventually, he breaks the silence.
"Why are you here?" John asks suddenly, his words ricocheting in the tunnel. A boy your size should be home with his mother and father. Not tagging along with some pirate."
Father? The word tastes foreign to me.
I steady John's arm so he doesn't trip on the large puddle ahead of us.
"I have neither," I tell him. "I never knew my father. My mother is dead. I spent most of my recent years working in a brothel. A pirate is more familiar to me than any childhood you're imagining."
I say that, but why am I here?
It wasn't even a full two days ago, when my life was still stuck in that brothel.
Now I'm walking through the sewers with a pirate and a wounded marine, going to a harbor so I can hopefully find someone that ordinary people can't perceive, who'll protect me from terrible monsters that want to consume me when night comes.
I want to say I'm here to live, but I'm not sure if that's true.
Before meeting Ikaris, before the Somata discovered and began hunting me, did I always want to live?
I should say yes, since I always wanted freedom from that brothel, but does freedom mean living? Living with a beating heart that'll continue to collect pain?
"I'm here because I find it convenient," I say to John. "Like you cooperating because it helps you stay alive. Nothing much to say about that."
We turn the bend.
The tunnel exhales, widening, and our lanterns find space instead of more tunnel. The black water spreads into a shallow basin ringed by white iron stanchions. The ceiling arches high and wide, swallowing our light. It's entirely dark except for our lanterns. I can hear rusted, hanging chains swinging slowly.
I taste salt and old tar, and something sweet, like honey, but too warm, as if it had been left in the sun.
"This should be the ballast chamber," John mutters, looking at the map in Morgan's hands. "It should be full of ballast stone, and a flood door there." He points and hesitates.
There is no freight pile, no door, only a blank wall where the grates should be. The floor dips in the middle, as if a giant hand had pressed it there.
We step in slowly, watching the lantern light ripple our shadows.
Morgan lifts a hand, gesturing for us to stop without looking back.
I stop as John catches himself against a wall.
Then we hear a singular drip.
The sound lands ahead of us, not from the ceiling, but from the center of the room. We all walk carefully toward it, holding our light out, hoping we could see something, anything.
The stone glints with the standing water, and there, where all the seams point, is someone crouched.
A little girl?
She's small enough that the hem of the dress swallows her calves, sticking to her fingers. Her face is buried in her knees; we could only see her neck and the tremors of her shoulders. She's crying.
The sound is thin and ragged. It doesn't carry right. It falls a few feet past her and slips sideways, coming back faster than echoes should.
Morgan looks everywhere but at the girl, his sailor eyes trying to read the scene before making a move.
"A child?" John breathes. "Hey, little one," John calls, limping forward with his crutch. As he gets close, we hear her voice: "Please," the girl whispers.
Morgan dips his fingers into the runoff, flicking water toward the center. It should arc and break; instead, the water finds a circle on the floor and skates around it like iron filings around a magnet.
The film on the water glints as if oil were on it. No, not oil, there's a thin skin-like egg-white stretching and relaxing with the girl's breath.
"She 's alone," John says to more to himself than to us. "Hey, little girl, are you alright? It's okay, we won't hurt you."
Her crying stops suddenly. "What's your name?" John asks.
She sniffles and coughs before sounding back. "Amira," she says.
"Amira, that's a fine name."
Her crying starts up again. "Can-can you help me find my mother? I lost here, and now I'm alone."
Morgan and I stay silent as John talks to the girl. "Sure, we can. Do you know where you last saw your mother?"
The girl nods. "We were heading toward the catacombs, but then I took the wrong turn, and now I'm lost. I want my mother!"
John is a few feet away from her now, trying to calm the girl. "It's alright, Amira. We'll help find your mother."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Thank you, mister! Thank you for helping me to find my mother!"