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“Irrelevant!” He lifted a hand to shush me. “Even if every single living member of the house has somehow been able to exorcise the evil magic from their system, all it’ll take is for one of them to procreate, and the cycle starts anew. I mean, death, destruction, and utter bloody mayhem. Do you really want that to happen again? Because let me just tell you about a few of their atrocities I witnessed when I went to Lowden to help fight them.”
And just as I planned, he forgot all about the dangers of our journey so he could veer off into a passionate monologuing rant, extolling the many inequities made by his most despised house.
Yes, I decided cheerfully, everything was going to be just fine. I had distracted my bickering bodyguard as planned, and now I had a hope flowing through my bloodstream that was strong enough to claim empires.
We would succeed in this quest. I’d make sure of it.
27
Farrow
I limped into Blayton on foot four days after Nicolette left me in chains. It took me less than an hour from her departure to find the key to unlock my shackles. I probably could’ve raced after her and caught up to her without that short of a delay, but I didn’t try.
She didn’t want me. I could respect that.
I even understood it. And I knew it was the best thing she could’ve ever done for herself.
But that didn’t prevent me from becoming a shredded mess inside. I swore the only thing that kept me going was pure adrenaline and the desire to save Sable.
I had walked, mercilessly pushing myself, and probably went farther than I would’ve on a horse. Then, two days ago, I came across a merchant who sold bolts of cloth with a broken axle on his wagon. After helping him fix it, he’d given me a ride to a small settlement he lived in not far from the capital. So I had walked the last few miles to the edge of Blayton, and I still didn’t have details formed in my plan to free Sable yet.
Sneaking into the castle would be the easy part. I knew my way around all the side halls and hidden passages like the back of my hand. And since I’d spent time in the dungeon after my mother had died, I knew how the cells were fashioned.
Iron bars separated the different pods from each other, but the entire contraption was one big cave-like pit cut into the ground with rock floors and walls. The only way to escape was for someone to lower a ladder for you to climb up to the metal-mesh ceilings that were bound closed with a padlock on each door.
But I wasn’t sure how many knights guarded the dungeon at a time. I’d have to pickpocket the padlock keys from someone and distract pretty much all of them so I could slip inside. I’d also have to fashion some kind of knotted rope to lower down into the pit for Sable to climb up, if she was still well enough to climb.
Please God, let her be well.
It was too bad Nicolette wasn’t here with her—
But that regret didn’t even register when it came to all the things I regretted with her. I’d dishonored her in so many ways. If I started mourning shit now, I’d never stop.
I wondered briefly if she’d made it back to Donnelly yet. As long as she found the desert, I was sure the scorpions would help her the rest of the way home, whether their debt was paid to her or not. Those bugs had adored her. They’d see to her welfare.
But all that counted on so many ifs. For all I knew, she might’ve been raped and murdered minutes after leaving me.
Fear clouded my system.
Please God, let her be well, I prayed again, for a different princess this time, one I didn’t have the luxury to worry about right now. I would unravel if I did. And Sable needed me to have my wits about me. So I concentrated on my sister.
Wearing a straw hat that I’d traded the cloth merchant for, along with a long overcoat and scarf that covered the bottom portion of my face, I stole through the city incognito, intent to recover Sable.
First, I decided to reconnoiter the area, to make sure she was still being kept in the dungeon at all and count the number of men guarding her.
When I reached the castle without my identity being discovered, a sense of relief and victory clouded my system. I began to think that maybe I’d meet with success in this crazy plan of mine after all.
Wondering where I’d take Sable once we escaped, I found a hidden entrance that was camouflaged by a thatch of ivy growing up the side of the stone walls. Thorns clawed into my skin, and leaves and vines tangled in my hair and clutched my clothes, as if they wanted to pull me into a fatal hug and suffocate me to death.
The sudden claustrophobia made me panic, and I had to pause and close my eyes, orienting myself before I pushed onward and found the crack in the wall. Knowing things were only about to get tighter, I left my pack of things there and turned sideways before squeezing inside. An interior escape hall was straight ahead; I merely had to shuffle along awkwardly like this until I reached it. My hat snagged on a rough section of wall. I ducked my head with my face still cranked to the side in order to get out of it and keep moving. My coat got caught next. There was no room between me and the wall to even reach in with my hand and untangle the mess. I had to use brute force to push myself along, tearing cloth in the process.
About a hundred mini shuffles later, I finally reached the opening of the abandoned hall and I wedged myself in. Though wider than the crack in the wall, this passageway was still tight and dark with a chilling breeze that wafted by briskly. Not even servants used it, making it musty and dusty, full of cobwebs and mold.
Hunching my shoulders to avoid hitting my head on the low ceiling, I crept alo
ng until I came to a door that would lead to a main corridor. But as I recalled, the door was hidden by a floor-to-ceiling tapestry. If I could slip into the hall behind that, I knew I could creep around unnoticed, hiding behind pillars and curtains until I reached the dungeon entrance.
I set my hand on the door when I reached it, knowing I’d have to be more vigilant once I stepped through this portal, for guards and servants would be everywhere.
