“What are you doing?”
“Getting us out of here.”
Ramishah frowned, eyes following my hands through the gaps in the bars. “Even if you could pick the lock, we’d still have to get past the guard at the end of the hall, and the ones stationed at the door.”
I’d used my magic before to find objects, relics, clues in text. But I knew it just obeyed what I directed it to. And I knew I could use it to escape too.
“What if I could pick the lock? And find a way out? One without guards?”
Ramishah still looked uncertain, but now there was something underlying her wariness—intrigue. “How?”
“My magic,” I explained, and her eyes blew wide.
“Humans have magic on the other side of the River?”
I hesitated, not wanting to explain, but she carried on without a response.
“In our stories, the wall was raised to separate us from the humans, because a darkness was taking over your land. Our ancestors erected the wall to protect magic, protect our people, and prevent anyone from crossing either way. What is it that you magic can do?” Ramishah came close up to the bars, eyes gleaming, I shook off the uneasy feeling I had.
“Open things. Unlock locks, even doors that cannot be opened.” I gestured to the prison door. “I can also find things.”
“Find them?”
“Like a way out.” I swallowed. “An ancient relic.”
Her eyes found mine. “That’s what you were doing in the library?”
“Yes.” What was the point in trying to hide it now?
“What are you looking for?”
I thought of the book and the map, likely still sitting in the library, likely drenched in blood. “It doesn’t matter.”
If I managed to get out of here, I would find it again. But in order to do that, I had to stay alive. I placed my palms to the lock, facing away from the guard, feeling my magic rise up to do my bidding. Elation drowned out my fears and honed my concentration. But just as I was about to unpick the lock, a wash of warm air flooded through the cells, and light trickled down from above.
“Get back,” whispered Mishah, her voice urgent. “Someone’s coming.”
We both stumbled back from the door of our cells as a collective of guards marched toward us down the long corridor. I recognized the Viceroy from the library, but with him was another young man with silver hair that gleamed like moonlight.
It was the fae I’d seen in the forest the first day I arrived, the one who’d saved my life.
At least he had a shirt on this time.
My eyes flicked between him and the Viceroy. I had no idea how I ever thought the Viceroy was a clueless young scholar. His hair was dark and slicked back, and his eyes glowed like hot coals. He wore different clothes now; instead of a buttoned-up shirt as he’d had on in the library, he was wearing a tunic that was loose, the front exposing the top of his chest. As he walked closer, something glinted below his collarbone, and the closer he got the more I realized it wasn’t a chain around his neck as I had first thought.
It was pieces of gold embedded in his very skin.
My eyes darted up to find that he was watching me with an inscrutable gaze.
“Take the other one,” he said, waving at the guards beside him, his voice low and bored. He didn’t even glance in Mishah’s direction; his intense gaze stayed focused on me.
She screamed as the guards dragged her out of her cell. The man with the silver hair inclined his head as they dragged her away, and stepped aside as the guards moved past, but didn’t try to help her.
I rushed to the bars. “Wait! Where are you taking her?”
Hot, burning anger rose in my blood, and I wished I had the kind of magic that could save the people I loved from dying.
It was Nani and Safiyya all over again. It was my mother, leaving her only child so that she could help our people, but never coming back.
