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She turned toward her aunts, studying the locks on their shackles and then looking to the lock on the cell door. “Eva, Torrie, do either of you have an idea where exactly we are?”
“We’re in my stepfather’s castle,” Eva said. “Where I grew up.”
Victoria’s eyebrows lifted. “You know how the castle is laid out? The grounds?”
“Yes.”
“Is there a guard down here?”
“There was the first few days we were down here, but they haven’t been staying down here for the last several days,” Torrie said. “They cannot stand it down here any more than we can.”
Victoria met Torrie’s eyes, then looked to Eva, relieved to see determination glinting in their eyes. “I can get us out of this cell, if you can get us out of the castle.”
Eva’s jaw dropped. “You can pick the locks?”
Victoria nodded. Or at least she hoped she could. Rafe’s lesson had been quick, her practice short, but she could try.
“There’s a passageway, underground, at the far end of the undercroft,” Eva said, her words speeding. “I used to hide in there, away from my stepfather. It comes out in the southern woods unless it’s been changed since I was last here years ago. I don’t know if there are guards posted out there.”
Victoria’s hand gripped tight around the handle of the dagger. Rafe’s dagger. “It will have to do.”
Eva grabbed her wrists. “But I cannot, Vicky. My leg—it was twisted in the carriage when it almost overturned. And then I kicked it into that ass, Freddy. That broke my ankle good and through and I can’t walk, much less run.”
“I hope you got a good kick in before it broke,” Victoria said.
“I did.” Eva gave a half smile, glanced at Torrie, and then set her look back on Victoria. “You and Torrie have to go, get free, find Lach.”
“We’re not leaving you behind, Eva.”
Eva’s face crumpled. “You have to.”
Victoria shook her head. “No, we’re leaving this place together. I don’t care if we have to carry you out of here. We’re escaping. Tonight. You included.”
{ Chapter 29 }
“That is it?” Victoria whispered over her shoulder as she stood with her hands on the iron bars of their cage, shaking the stability as the guard took away the bowls that had held the porridge that served as their nightly meal.
Their only meal, morning and night, according to Eva and Torrie. No wonder her aunts looked as weak as they did, their faces gaunt. One could only eat grainy, dirt-infused porridge for so long and stay alive.
Torrie tilted her head, her right ear upward. It wasn’t until the footsteps receded up the stairwell at the far end of the undercroft that she spoke in a whisper. “That is it. A guard feeds us, then takes the bowls away. We don’t see a guard again until the morning. They’ve gotten lazy, bored by the whole scheme of holding helpless women in a dank cell.” The sneer of disgust in her voice was clear. Admirable that she still had the energy for it, but Torrie possessed a spine of steel under her usual docile manner.
“And the torches?”
“Sometimes they burn down until it is total darkness. Sometimes not.”
“Then we best get started.” Victoria spun back to them, walking over and crossing her legs as she dropped to her backside in front of Eva’s outstretched legs. “Since we aren’t helpless any more—or at least not if I can help it.”
She pulled her skirt up, fishing out the steel lever wires from the ribbon holding them to her thigh, but she left the dagger in place. Setting the wires onto the ground, she gently shifted Eva’s left foot and calf and the shackle around it at an angle to catch the low light from the torch just outside the cell.
Eva winced with an intake of breath.
Victoria looked up to her. “Let’s start on your other leg first.”
Eva nodded, stretching her good leg out toward Victoria.
Grabbing the steel lever wires, Victoria bent over the lock, setting the tips into the keyhole and fishing around for the levers.
It took several minutes before her hands stopped shaking enough that she could feel the resistance of the levers. It took another twenty minutes before she found the right height for all four levers and the lock popped free.
