Dovelyn blew out a breath, turning the other way.
“We were going to go back to help Rainer find him,” Kallon said, lowering her voice. “We need to get Brock out of the castle before we go after Sie.”
I swallowed. A lot was at stake because Tezya freed us. I was still furious at him for lying to me and confused on his part for why I was sent to Tennebris, but I was also grateful. He risked everything to get me and Peter out of there, and now he was putting his friends at risk because of it.
“I’m sorry about Brock,” I said into the silence. I felt horrible that I hadn’t thought about him again. I just assumed he recovered, but if he was still blind…
“We’ll find him,” Tezya said, looking right at me.
“Is this Brock person dying?” Peter asked. “Because my friend is.”
No one answered. I could tell Tezya was working through both options—getting Sie or Brock first.
It was Kallon who finally broke the silence, “Brock isn’t dying. The King won’t kill him, but there’s a good chance he’s being tortured.”
“Then please,please,” Peter’s voice broke, “can we save Sie first?”
“You said you have a plan to get him out? Can it be done without anyone realizing he’s gone?” Tezya asked.
Peter grinned, and it looked like it belonged to a madman. “I can make it look like Sie died in the prison. No one will even know he’s missing.”
Afterwe finally convinced Dovelyn to get Sie out before Brock, we’d been discussing what Peter observed for the past four hours—detailing the prison layout and the guards’ rotation schedules. Peter planned to take out and transform into one with fuchsia colored eyes that had direct access to Sie.
“I’m going with,” I said.
“No, you aren’t,” Dove quipped. “You won’t be helpful. You’re staying here with Tezya.”
There was no way I was staying in this tiny room alone with Tezya while everyone else rescued Sie. We moved locations right after we fought over who to rescue first and have been staying in something called amotel. I wanted to be in Tezya’s condo again. I took the luxury and extra space for granted. The new place only consisted of one small room where the bed took up the entirety of the space and it wasn’t even a particularly large bed. All of us were crammed around it, leaning against the walls, talking—more like arguing—over a plan. Only Peter lounged on the mattress with his arms folded behind his head.
“I can breathe underwater, and it’s an underwater prison. How can you say I won’t be helpful?”
“Because you’ve barely practiced. You’re a novice when it comes to your abilities. Your reserves were never tested, and you have no idea how long you can maintain your powers. The last thing we need is for you to stop breathing underwater and die.” Dovelyn inspected her nails, not even bothering to look at me as she spoke.
“We only have to be submerged in water to go down through the trench,” I countered, recalling every detail Peter told us about the prison. I withheld a shudder as I tried not to linger on the prison itself. I internally revolted when Peter was describing the two sections: the cages suspended above some sort of larger, communal one below. “Once we enter, it’s just like breathing regular air. I can hold my breath for that long.”
“You won’t be useful once we’re down there,” Kallon said, surprising me. “So it really doesn’t matter if you can or can’t hold your breath for a period of time.”
I bristled at the harshness of Kallon’s words as I scanned the room for anyone to side with me, but no one spoke up. I looked at Kallon. Her yellow eyes matched half her dyed hair today. Out of everyone, I thought she would’ve agreed with me.
She seemed to sense my disappointment. “I’m sorry, babes, but Dove kind of has a point. I’m not going down either. Besides, the more people that go, the more Dovelyn has to cast her invisibility over, and the more I have to portal. It gets too risky. If either of us diminishes our reserves, we’re screwed. The less people the better.”
“That’s bullshit—” I started, knowing full well Kallon was strong enough. Her portals were only taxing when she created new ones or if she was transferring a lot of people. One more wasn’t going to make a difference. And Dovelyn was known to be the strongest air user in Lux. It was just a pathetic excuse to leave me behind.
“It’s final,” Tezya interrupted, and I shot daggers his way, but he didn’t flinch away from my glare. Instead, he ignored me and turned to Peter. “Go over your plan again.”
Peter groaned. “We already went over it five times.”
“You’ll go over it a hundred more if that’s what it takes until everyone knows exactly what’s happening. You won’t be able to talk once you enter so it’s imperative every second is accounted for.”
I could sense Tezya’s military leadership shining through, and I half wondered why he wasn’t arguing to join them. It didn’t seem like him to stay behind, and no matter how good of a mask he donned, I could see through it. He didn’t like the idea of not going either. He was nervous.
“Kallon will portal us to the entrance of the trench,” Dovelyn answered. “From there, Peter and I go down. Kal will wait at the surface. I’ll have my invisibility over the two of us, as well as one over Kallon.”
Peter spoke next, “Once we’re in, I’ll find the guard that lingers by Sie’s cell. We’ll wait until he goes to the bathroom, which he does often because he sneaks drinks on the job, and I’ll knock him out.
“Then I’ll shift into him and unlock Sie’s cell, pretending to take him to the torture room, but we won’t make it there.” He pointed to a spot on a piece of paper where he sketched a hand-drawn map of the prison. It looked more like a circular, spiraling maze than holding cells. I was impressed Peter was able to scope out so much of it, nonetheless, recall all the painstaking details. Even if the map looked like a five-year-old drew it, it held the information we needed for the plan to work. “There’s a section here,” Peter pointed, “where there aren’t any prisoner cages. Once we get here, Dovelyn will cast her invisibility over us, and we’ll bring Sie into the bathroom where the real guard is tied up. We’ll swap their outfits, and then I’ll shove the guard into Sie’s cage.”
“Won’t people recognize he’s not really Sie?” Kallon asked.
