The laughing God's Gambit

Chapter 5: watery mouths.

She turned, obviously not buying it.

A card game. Big stakes. I got cocky. The other guy he was a dragon, just not in dragon form. I had no clue at the time. I promised to pay him back with something just as valuable. Thought I’d owe a handful of coins, tops. Nope. He wanted a dragon egg. Not his, someone else’s. Said it’d be poetic. I had to steal it. I tried, got caught, and the dragon was pissed. Still owe him.

So you stole the Tear to pay the dragon.

The Tear was worth way more than a few eggs. Would’ve solved everything. Then you showed up. He chuckled, a real belly laugh.

She didn’t answer for a bit. The fire crackled and filled the silence.

The hall. What you saw that was Stormcrown Keep. My home. It’s gone now. Bad people, bad luck, take your pick. She didn’t want to dig into it. “I was supposed to be at the gate. But I was off chasing a bandit. Came back and it was rubble. My family… buried underneath.”

He had nothing. “I’m sorry” didn’t cut it.

My duty’s all I’ve got left. And now, thanks to you, I’m running and failing at that, too. She looked at him, firelight flickering in her eyes. This bond? It’s a cage. For both of us.

A loud clang upstairs made them both jump. Voices definitely not Finn or Boom. Cops.

Police! Open up!

Ferris shot up. Lyria grabbed a wrench and stood by the door.

Footsteps thundered down the stairs. A lot of boots.

The fire, Lyria hissed, pointing at a door where they could dump coal.

That was their only shot.

Ferris scanned the room. Pipes, gears, coal then, up high, a big air vent.

There! He scrambled onto some crates and shoved the vent open. Tight, pitch-black. Go!

Lyria didn’t waste time. She tossed the wrench aside, climbed up, and squeezed into the vent. Ferris followed, his boots clanging. He pulled the vent cover back just as the door swung open.

He lay in the dark behind her, dust choking him. Through the vent, he heard the cops.

…check behind the coal. Look for hiding spots.

It’s roasting in here, Sarge. No one’s here.

Just check.

A flashlight beam swept past. Ferris held his breath. He could feel Lyria freeze up.

The light moved away.

All clear. Let’s go. This place is a furnace.

Boots pounded out. Door slammed.

They waited, tense and silent. Ferris’s muscles screamed.

We need to move, Lyria whispered. They’ll post someone outside.

Which way? The vent forked.

Left goes up. Street level.

Right, then. Ferris backed up.

The vent narrowed. His cloak snagged and tore with a loud rip.

His silver disc tumbled from his pocket, clattering down the shaft.

He listened, helpless, as it slid away and vanished through a lower vent.

Suddenly, the quiet in his mind shattered. Every bit of Lyria’s fear, her focus, her anger they all slammed into him. It felt like someone yelling straight into his head.

Then something else hit him. So strong it drowned out everything else.

Not anger. Not fear.

Hunger. An ugly emptiness.

His stomach growled.

Ahead, he heard her swallow hard.

The disc, she said, shaky. We have to get it back.

But the bond was howling, and it was obvious now she hadn’t eaten in days.

Here they were, stuck in a vent, bound together, and it wasn’t the cops or some spell that’d get them. It was hunger.

And the only way out meant going deeper.

Hunger’s the worst. It wipes out everything else pain, fear, even hope until all you can think about is food.

Lyria’s hunger wasn’t just a feeling in Ferris’s mind. His own stomach cramped and twisted. He felt lightheaded.

“We… we can’t go back,” he rasped, mouth dry as ash. The vent felt like an oven, and the disc was gone, lost below. The bond was a blaring signal of shared desperation.

Forward, Lyria said, tight and clipped. She started crawling, the metal groaning under her armor. The vent’s gotta go somewhere. Maybe to a trash chute, maybe outside.

It was their only shot. Ferris trailed after her, staring at her boots, breathing in hot metal and dust, and drowning in that endless, gnawing hunger. He honestly couldn’t tell whose was worse. He started to black out.

The vent sloped down, then twisted hard. Dim, greasy light flickered ahead. He heard a steady clang-clang-clang and people singing, loud and off-key.

Lyria stopped at a wide grate. She peeked down, then jerked back, disgust rolling through the bond and making Ferris gag.

What? he mouthed.

She just pointed.

He crawled up beside her and looked.

Below them, steam billowed around a huge, noisy kitchen. Not fancy, just chaos and clatter. Enormous pots bubbled. Cooks in stained aprons hollered over each other. In the middle, a pile of filthy dishes waited by a loud, hissing machine.

The bathhouse kitchen. And thank the gods food.

On a long table by the wall, away from the mess, sat the leftovers from some staff meal: half a loaf of dark bread, a chunk of cheese, and a big bowl of cold stew.

It was the most beautiful thing Ferris had ever seen.

His mouth watered. He could feel Lyria’s hunger, too it was all mixed up together, sharp and desperate.

Guards? he whispered.

She just shook her head, eyes glued to her food. Two cooks. They're busy. The machine's loud.

Four rusty screws held the grate in place. It was meant for rats, not people. Ferris couldn’t use his ghost powers he couldn’t phase the whole grate, and he didn’t have any tools.

Lyria reached for the heavy wrench she’d swiped from the boiler room. Too big to wedge between the bars, so no luck using it as a lever.

Ferris’s mind sparked with an idea. Honestly, it was a terrible one.

He held out his hand for the wrench. She passed it over, looking at him like he’d lost it.

Instead of prying, he flipped the wrench in his hand. Took a breath, lined it up with the corner where the grate met the vent wall, and gave it a sharp knock.