19

Washhouse Six worked through the night.

Steam covered the windows. Fifty people washed, boiled, dried, and folded laundry from four districts and three wings of the Citadel. The regency’s garments traveled in black baskets. Ardan’s kept a red ribbon. Guard blankets had a blue thread sewn into the edge.

Maive handed Isolde an apron, a coif, and a pole for stirring water.

“First rule: the laundry listens,” she said. “Every pocket can hold a message or a trap.”

Kaoran received a basket.

“Second rule?”

“New people carry the heavy loads.”

“That rule seems self-serving.”

“I wrote it.”

Empty sacks hid their arrival from River Street. They climbed out of the wagon inside the soap storehouse. Outside, two guards checked tokens. Veren had circulated the descriptions of Mara Venn and the handle carver. The coif changed Isolde’s outline. Kaoran wore an apron that reached his ankles.

“It suits you,” she said.

“One more word and you clean off your own blood next time.”

Maive laid three sheets over the basket.

“Third rule: jokes wait until we’re through the checkpoint.”

They pushed the load toward the yard.

The palace route began at a stone ramp. Baskets went up in pairs to a booth where pieces were counted, names checked, and a wax seal placed on every lid. Then they crossed an enclosed bridge to the Citadel cellars.

Isolde had used that bridge as a child to hide from Telmor. Aelyn knew a side grate that let them reach the storeroom roof. Once, they spent three hours there eating plums and listening to the High Incendiary search the courtyard for them.

The memory smelled of fruit, damp stone, and triumph.

A blue plate covered the grate.

“They installed it in the second year,” Maive said without looking. “It detects heat inside the baskets. It also counts nearby breaths if the guard activates the stone.”

“How do people get through?” Isolde asked.

“By water.”

They entered the rinsing room. A wide channel carried used water toward the river. The current passed through a vault beneath the Citadel wall. A sluice gate kept large objects from passing.

Maive opened a locker. Steps lay behind it.

“The laundresses’ route goes down here. The first group reaches a cistern. The second controls the bridge. The third waits at the landing stage. Each knows one signal.”

“Does the network know we’re coming?” Kaoran asked.

“It knows Lenda’s chest has delivered a page. That’s enough to open the first door.”

“And the second?”

“They’ll decide inside.”

Isolde put the token away without asking for another entrance. Maive’s hands smelled of soap; the basket carried a sheet marked with fresh wax. Aelyn had kept all of this working in her absence. She would have to learn to pass through the doors they offered.

They went down with the basket. The stairs ended beside the current. There were two tunnels: one followed the water; the other climbed toward the ovens along old copper pipes.

A woman waited at the junction.

She wore a folded sheet over her head. Her face remained behind the cloth.

“Three cuts in the bread,” she said.

Maive answered:

“Two patches on the apron.”

“A door on every river.”

“The yeast arrived damp.”

The woman removed the cloth.

Isolde recognized Orla.

The laundress had aged around the eyes. The rest was the same: sharp nose, hair pinned up impatiently, and a way of looking that turned everyone else’s mistakes into work for her. She had sewn buttons onto Isolde’s dresses, hidden Aelyn’s letters, and scolded both girls for using curtains as ropes.

Orla looked at Kaoran. Then at Isolde.

The coif covered her hair. Steam had erased the ash on her eyebrows. The scar lay beneath the dress collar. Orla paused at her eyes.

“Route name?” she asked.

“None,” Isolde replied.

“Everyone brings one.”

“The last one ended in Bren.”

Orla looked at her a moment longer. Isolde kept her hands still on the basket. The laundress brought the lamp closer to inspect the token and, when she withdrew it, stopped seeking her eyes.

“Then the route will call you when it needs to.”

She took the basket.

“Aelyn knows Lenda’s page. She expected a copy from the port eight months ago. The arrests closed two exits.”

“We have Esvan’s books and part of Depot Twenty-Two’s,” Isolde said. “The codes connect Arkhe, Arvek, Caleryon, and Cendral.”

“You’ll deliver the information without approaching her office.”

“Agreed.”

Orla raised an eyebrow. Isolde waited for the question that woman would once have asked. The laundress simply picked up the basket handle.

“The east kitchen receives baskets on the predawn shift,” she continued. “Miren keeps the ovens running. Her cell stopped moving messages. We use it as a passage with her permission and an exit route of her own.”

“Where are the children?” Maive asked.

“In the salt chamber.”

Orla started walking.

“What children?” Kaoran asked.

“Twelve families on the red census worked in kitchens, stables, and workshops,” she explained. “The commission announced a kinship review. Adults with corrected residences can stay if they surrender their children to registered homes. Eleven children were to be separated this morning.”

“Have you got them out?”

“Their families chose to hide them at the shift change. Two boats are waiting at the landing stage. They should have left before midnight.”

“That’s passed.”

“The south-gate checkpoint closed the waterway. Veren brought an alert to the palace. They’re searching baskets, channels, and wagons.”

Depot Twenty-Two had reached this route faster than they had.

They crossed a chamber full of pipes. The ceiling shook with footsteps. Above were the kitchens: ovens, tables, storerooms, and corridors Isolde could draw with her eyes closed.

Orla opened a low door.

The salt chamber held six casks and eleven children.

The youngest was four. The oldest, fourteen. Two were siblings from River Street. Three came from the stables. A girl named Eda wore a kitchen helper’s uniform and had a ladle tied to her waist.

Miren was with them.

The cook had lost weight. Gray streaked her black hair, and flour remained beneath her nails. She looked at the bandage, the wet coif, and Isolde’s hands on the basket. She went still for an instant before turning to Orla.

“Orla,” she said, “you’ve brought fire into a salt chamber.”

“She brought the books we were waiting for.”

“And a raid.”

“Veren would have brought that even if the page were still in the chest.”

Miren turned to Isolde.

“Can you cross the channel without waking the plate?”

“I can keep my core closed. The current needs to be open.”

“The Guard lowered the outer sluice gate.”

Kaoran examined the pipe map drawn in chalk.

“Manual control?”

“In the boiler room,” Eda said. “Two wheels. One red, one green.”

“How do you know?” Isolde asked.

“I take soup to the stokers.”

Miren put a hand on her shoulder.

“Eda knows the route. She also chooses to stay with her brother.”

The six-year-old boy slept against a cask.

“The boiler room is guarded,” Miren continued. “The commission ordered an inspection of the sleeping quarters. It begins in half an hour. When the children are missing, they’ll seal the palace.”

“Does Aelyn know about the review?” Isolde asked.

“The civil affairs office received another schedule. She’s inspecting rations in the north wing.”

“They’ve sent her away.”

“Orla left a signal. It may take an hour.”

“We have less.”

Isolde studied the children. Some knew the network. Others thought they were playing a silence game. Every family had chosen to hide them. Taking them out by another route meant preserving that decision and offering a destination.

“Where are the boats going?” she asked.

Orla pointed to the river.

“The first reaches a riverside mill. The second crosses to a healer’s house. The families have three days to join them or choose another shelter.”

“Who’s waiting at the landing stage?”

“A cell that knows nothing about this chamber. It will receive two lights if the way out is safe.”

“We open the sluice gate, divide the children, and use the current,” Isolde said. “Eda’s group can follow the pipes to the boiler. The others wait here with Miren.”

“The inspection will find the door,” Orla warned.

Kaoran touched the wall. A ventilation duct lay behind it.

“We can take them to the service gallery and go down when the water flows.”

“The gallery passes over the east kitchen,” Miren said. “It has a lattice over the storeroom.”

Isolde knew that lattice.

From there, she had heard Telmor searching for her over the plums.

It also offered a direct view of the corridor Aelyn would take if she received the signal.

“We use the gallery,” she decided. “Maive prepares empty baskets as a distraction. Orla takes Lenda’s page along her usual route. Kaoran and I open the boiler controls with Eda. Miren guides the other children.”

“Who’s in charge?” the girl asked.

Isolde crouched to her height.

“Whoever knows the next door. At the boiler, you.”

Eda gripped her ladle.

“Then walk fast.”

Eda led the way through the copper duct.

The space forced them to move sideways. The main pipe ran along the wall and burned through their clothes. Kaoran laid strips of cloth over the narrow spots. Isolde kept her core drawn in so the bridge plates would not sense her.

The girl counted junctions.

“One for the bread oven. Two for the pots. Three for cleaning water. The room comes after the bend.”

“Have you been inside the duct?” Kaoran asked.

“A spoon fell once.”

“You went through half the palace for a spoon?”

“Miren counts every one.”

“Wise policy.”

Eda stopped.

Voices came through a grate.

“The alert mentions two suspects from Depot Twenty-Two,” a man said. “A dark-haired woman and an armed old man.”

“Eighty dark-haired women work here,” another voice replied. “The old men use knives to cut soap.”

“Search them.”

“The councilor’s order requires individual charges.”

“Security suspends that requirement.”

The raid captain was named Sorev Dane. Isolde recognized the name from Belor’s lists. He had signed arrests in three districts and received a confiscated house beside the river.