The deadfall made a horrible crunching noise when it hit the floor.

Seventeen

“There were advantages to growing up with a cold-blooded telepath for a mother. The ability to lie about why I was out past curfew was not among them.”

—Evelyn Baker

The sewers below Manhattan, heading for the lair of the only known male dragon left in the world

AFTER SOME PERFUNCTORY ARGUING—Uncle Mike knew I wouldn’t listen, I knew he wasn’t really trying to convince me to stay, we both knew he had to make the effort if he was going to live with himself—I was allowed to grab a city spelunking kit from Verity’s supplies and head for the nearest concealed manhole. I left the weapons behind, taking only a flashlight, some rope, and a backpack full of assorted individually wrapped snacks. There’s almost nothing that lives in a sewer that will attack a cuckoo who looks like she’s just passing through. There’s defense of your territory, and then there’s being suicidal.

Besides, who needed weapons when I had Istas? She was shorter than me in her human form, and she’d never met a pair of practical shoes in her life, but she could take on just about anything that I couldn’t mentally shield us from. We were an unstoppable team, or would have been, if I’d had the first clue how to talk to her. Verity always made it look so easy, while I found communication with most other cryptids really, really hard. Even when I could read their minds, I couldn’t always understand what I found there.

With Istas’ help, I was able to get the manhole levered out of the way—by which I mean “Istas picked up the manhole and tossed it off to one side, because she is not the most subtle brick in the wall”—and descended the ladder to sewer level. Istas skipped the ladder in favor of simply stepping off the edge, landing next to me without even bending her knees. Even Verity would have crouched to absorb the impact. Istas just dropped.

“Come on,” I said, and pulled the flashlight from my belt. She followed amiably after me as we started walking into the dark.

The waheela minced through the sludge covering the sewer floor like she was strolling down Broadway on a summer afternoon. She had added a parasol and a miniature top hat to her ensemble before we left the Nest; the hat was perched jauntily just above her side-swept ponytail. From the feelings of contentment emanating from her mind, she was convinced she looked absolutely fabulous, and also anticipating the opportunity to show her fabulousness to anything that might decide to take a shot at eating us.

“I don’t think there are any alligators down here, you know,” I said, playing the beam from the flashlight over the sewer wall. A rat ran by on urgent rat business.

Istas watched it go, emotional weather briefly shifting to “hungry” before swinging back to her usual calm contentment. “No, there are not,” she agreed. “There used to be, before the bugbears, servitors, and other carnivores removed them. There is, however, always the potential for a pleasant surprise. There have been rumors which indicate that a sewer kraken may be making its home downtown. I would enjoy the opportunity to battle something with that many limbs.”

Given the way Istas was dressed, the idea of her fighting a sewer kraken was disturbingly like something from the kind of anime Artie liked to pretend he never watched, and I liked to pretend I didn’t know about. I gave her a sidelong glance. “Um, Istas, it was nice of you to insist on coming with me and everything, but you do know what we’re doing down here, right?”

“I am not stupid, Sarah Zellaby,” she said, in a voice that was much quieter than the one she’d been using only a moment before. “I realize I wear frilly clothing and impractical shoes, and that by many people’s standards, I am odd, but I am not stupid. You are here because you want to ask the dragons to assist in recovering your cousin. I am here because Verity is my friend, and would look on me with sadness if I were to allow you to come to harm. Friendship is a rare thing among my people. We do not practice it often, and most of us do not practice it very well. I am hoping to be a better friend to Verity than my brothers and sisters were to me.”

“Oh.” I kept walking. Beside me, Istas did the same, spinning her parasol lazily with each step. Finally, I said, “I forget sometimes that I can’t treat you like you’re human. I mean, I don’t forget, exactly, but . . .”

“Your mannerisms and reactions are human enough, despite the fact that you are biologically even less human than I am, that you sometimes forget not all hominids will follow the same behavioral patterns.” Istas shook her head. “It is a common, if unfortunate, trap of the mind. I am sorry you have fallen prey to it. I will not take offense at your ignorance.”

The worst part was that she meant it: for Istas, the matter was already forgotten. I had made the mistake of treating her like a human being, she had corrected me, and as long as I didn’t do it again, there was nothing left to discuss. Being a waheela had to be pretty simple compared to being a cuckoo.

Then again, being a real cuckoo—an amoral sociopath who existed only for the sake of making other people miserable—is probably pretty easy. It’s being a cuckoo like me that’s hard. Sometimes I feel like neither nature nor nurture did me any favors. Here, Sarah. Have a moral and ethical code that means you’d feel bad killing people for your enjoyment, and have a set of instincts and hereditary skills that means you’re not really built to do anything else. It’ll be fun!

It’s not fun.

The sewer floor got gradually cleaner as we walked, until the sludge was gone, and the walls showed subtle signs of having been washed recently. Dragons don’t like wallowing in filth any more than the rest of us. They just lived in the sewers because William had been asleep during the construction of Manhattan, and now a good sized chunk of downtown was built over his head. Until someone figured out a way to get him out of his cavern without destroying the city, he was stuck.

Not that he was complaining. Fresh air is nice, but not being slaughtered by the Covenant of St. George is nicer, and as long as he stayed underground, he was safe from most forms of detection. Most, not all: if the Covenant had Verity, and if they were able to break her . . . the dragons wouldn’t be able to move William. We weren’t ready for this. We never thought we’d need to be.

Istas looked around as we moved into the final branch of the sewer. This one looked absolutely filthy, and smelled filthy, too, until we were about ten feet from the entrance. Then the smell of sewer was replaced by the smell of bleach and cheap air freshener. “The dragons have a good working relationship with the hidebehinds,” I said. “It’s a camouflage measure.”