The opening in the floor of Holding Cell Three was twenty-six inches square. A jagged, iron-lipped throat that vented a nonstop, scalding draft of sulfur vapor directly into the cold air of the room. Ivara Quill didn’t hesitate for a split second. She didn’t look at her walking boots resting by the cot. She didn’t look at the empty water bowl or the three tally marks scratched into the whitewash.
She dropped from the cot onto her stockinged feet, slid her legs through the opening. Then she let her hips sink into the shaft.
Beneath the floor, Melli Dorn’s broad hands caught her by the ankles, guiding her dropping boots onto the underwater cut stone ledge. “Drop your weight, girl,” Melli hissed through the rising steam. “Edda has the harness.”
Ivara exhaled fully, collapsing her chest as her ribs passed through the twenty-six-inch granite frame. The rough mortar scraped through the wool of her skirt. It tore the hem, and the sharp edge of the snapped iron pipe rim grazed her hip, but she didn’t flinch. She slid down into the dark basin, the warm sulfur water splashing up over her thighs and soaking her petticoats with ninety-degree mud.
Edda was already there in the shallow pool. Her strong right arm caught Ivara around the waist. She pulled her forward into the thirty-inch level crawlway of Chimney pipe B.
