Daughter of Witches: A Lyra Novel by Patricia Collins Wrede

sight until the water could soak her gown and drag her safely down, away from Gadrath and the Temple of Chaldon and the god. Her nails scrabbled on the rough stone surface, then found a hold.
    She felt the weight begin pulling at her, but her pain-induced clarity of thought was fading; the drug was reasserting its hold. Her fingers relaxed, and she felt them slide on the wet stone. Dreamily, she saw the pillar gliding sideways across her line of vision. Suddenly there were hands on her shoulders, pulling. She struggled weakly, but the effort only made it easier for her to be dragged to the shore. Stones scraped beneath her feet; she felt only a dim regret that she had failed to escape. She stumbled onto the narrow bank below the end of the bridge.
    “Come on, Renra!” whispered a voice. “We got to get out of here!”
    “Shandy!” She ought to be surprised, she thought. No, she was under the bridge, and Shandy always watched the parade from under the bridge. What was she doing under the bridge? She could not remember.
    Ranira could hear shouts above her, but they seemed distant and meaningless. She looked at Shandy and smiled. “You didn’t get caught,” she said.
    “Renra!” The boy was tugging at her. “The Temple guards will be here in a minute. Hurry up! Do you want them to catch us?”
    The urgency in Shandy’s voice penetrated at last. Ranira rose. The wet gown dragged at her legs like an iron weight. She plucked at it ineffectively. “I can’t…”
    “This way.” Shandy slipped away. Ranira followed. Her heavy skirts seemed to catch at the stone supports of the bridge, clinging and holding her back. Dark water lapped inches from her feet, and her slippers did not grip the narrow, wet stone ledge. She was panting when she caught up with Shandy, though they were barely three body-lengths from the place where she had reached the bank.
    “In here, Renra. You go first,” he whispered. He pointed to a rounded opening just above the water. Reddish-green liquid oozed sluggishly out of it, staining the stone below. Ranira shook her head, but the drug left her no will to resist. “Go on!” Shandy urged, and she obediently dropped to her knees and crawled into the hole.
    Darkness wrapped around her like a cloak. Her skirts caught on something. She pulled and felt the fabric tear. The tunnel floor was wet and slippery; her hand landed on something soft and slimy that wriggled. With a cry, she jerked back, and her head slammed against the top of the tunnel. Dizzy and frightened, she stayed motionless, waiting for the sick feeling to go away. Something touched her foot and she whimpered; it was the only remaining effort she was capable of.
    “Go on, Renra. It isn’t far,” came a whisper from behind her. Fuzzily, she recognized Shandy’s voice. With a sigh, she started forward again. Maybe he wouldn’t make her do anything else when she got to the end. Perhaps she should have stayed in the carriage. It wasn’t wet or cold or dark, and Gadrath only wanted her to sit and smile. No, she didn’t like Gadrath, and there was a reason why she hadn’t stayed. She couldn’t remember it just now, but she would. Now she had to keep crawling.
    Ranira crawled. The tunnel narrowed, the floor rose, and she was forced to creep along almost on her stomach. The embroidered gown was long since in rags. She would have stopped if it had not been for the insistent shoves from behind. Suddenly there was a little light in front of her—a stone in the roof of the tunnel had cracked. A few feet further she came to another, then three stones in a row with pieces broken out of them. Then the tunnel was a shallow trench half-filled with broken rocks. She sat up, blinking in the sunlight.
    Beside her, Shandy wriggled out of a dark space between two stones and grinned at her. “I told you I didn’t have to worry about Templemen, Renra. I bet they don’t even know the tunnel’s here. But we got to find someplace they won’t look