"Esther."
"Auguste," I breathed, twisting in the dark, my hands groping against nothing until I found the rocky surface of the wall. "That's Auguste."
"It's coming from the other direction," Asterion said, helping me grope my way down the hall until suddenly it ended on my right. "They are digging on the other side."
"Esther!"
"Auguste!" I cried out, the lilt of his voice so perfectly familiar and so weak at the same time.
"Wait, little one!"
But I had already slipped free of Asterion's gentle grip, running blindly into the empty dark after the echo.
"Tanner! Amon!" Asterion shouted behind me. "We found something!"
"Esther! I can't—"
"Auguste just keep calling!" I cried out as I collided into stone, fumbling to the left until I found another opening, stumbling down uneven steps and rushing forward after the soft repetitive cry of my name.
Auguste was alive. Auguste was alive.
"Esther!" His voice blended with new calls behind me, Amon shouting for me, and I focused forward.
Another wall, another twist right. Left, left again.
"Esther!"
I swallowed my whimper at the broken sound in Auguste's voice, twisting through the strange, black tunnels, my body bruising with every strike against another wall, my heart squeezing with another croak of my name.
And then, finally, a little gleam, so faint I almost thought I was hallucinating it, but from the same direction of Auguste's calling.
The others were lost somewhere in the tunnels, too far to hear, but if I just found Auguste, we would make our way back to them. Together. And then to find Ezra too.
I ran after the light, twisting around sudden corners twice, the glow growing until finally, I reached the last short corridor. I skidded into a cavern, the roots of a tree growing down the wall to my left, and there on the floor, my gentleman.
Auguste.
Auguste with a stained rag wrapped tight around his mouth, his hands bleeding and staked to the roots of the tree, his eyes black with rage and horror.
"At last."
Of course, I thought at the same moment, with soft, weak disappointment. Oh, of course.
The man sitting at a small table, with a plate of food set out in front of him and two glasses of wine waiting, was unfamiliar. I could not recall his face, his eyes, that mouth winking a patient smile at me, but I knew I had seen it before. The night of the theater, standing and watching me from the audience.
"Birsha," I said, shoulders slumping.
"Esther Reed," he greeted with a nod, standing from the table and delivering a gentlemanly bow. "My loose thread."
Auguste looked thin, the white sleeves of his shirt gone brackish dark brown with blood, and even though he was staring at me, he appeared lost in the room. How long had Birsha kept him pinned and bleeding that way? How much longer would he last?
"Come. Sit."
I looked at the doorway I entered through, lips parting.
"They won't hear you. They won't find you either. Even the bull is lost now."
My brow furrowed, lips pursing. I'd gone and done it up, hadn't I? Stupid human Esther chasing after a man's call. Right into a trap.
But you found Auguste. You just have to find a way out again.
"Esther. Sit."
"I'm not a dog."
"You act like a bitch in heat."
I scowled at Birsha, surprised by how quickly I'd forgotten the specifics of his face again. He was plain, but it was more than that. Something of his monstrous nature kept erasing him from my memory as quickly as he'd been collected.
I eyed Auguste, found his gaze widened on me, familiar and ferocious, and walked slowly forward to the table.
"You escaped me once in the grotto, which was an intriguing surprise," Birsha said, watching me take my seat before settling back into his own.
The meat on his plate was bleeding profusely, soaking the roasted potatoes and vegetables in the thin liquid. He arched an eyebrow at me as he reached for his glass and I took my own, pretending to bring it to my lips. He rolled his eyes but drank deeply, the color sitting strange and purple in the odd shine of the room.
"I won't say you escaped the theater. We both know that wasn't a real effort. But the incident with the golem was curious," Birsha said mildly, as if he hadn't roared with anger when I'd stolen Booker back from him. "Annoying, but curious."
He has black hair with some gray. Dark eyes. Medium skin, I cataloged, simply because it kept me calm. A large nose. Small ears.
"Being bested doesn't suit me," Birsha said, taking a bite of meat from his fork and studying me through narrowed eyes. "It gives others the wrong impression. Mortimer may lick her wounds and try to collect her pieces before I strike again, but you, you must be managed. I prefer to manage things indirectly, but I will make a special case since you appear to be so…slippery."