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“That makes no sense. If they are taking people up there—” I pointed to the floor above us, “—to kill them, why would they bother to feed and water everyone down here?”
“They want us alive. I don’t know why though.” He shivered. “And I don’t think I want to find out either.”
Neither did I. Which was why I needed a plan. A weapon. Or something.
“What do they bring the food in?”
“Baskets.”
“And the water?”
“They bring it in big wooden kegs, fill the buckets, and then they take them out with them when they leave.”
“Hmm,” I answered in reply, my mind drifting.
I could fit in a keg, as well as Boy, but getting in there without being detected was problematic, and the guards would surely notice the weight once they tried to take it out.
And—my gaze lifted, surveying the faces of the other prisoners, both young and old—how could I leave them all knowing that something horrible was waiting for them above?
There was no way I was going to leave them all to suffer whatever horrors waited upstairs. Which meant one thing . . .
If I was going to escape, we wereallgoing to escape.
But it wouldn’t be enough to just get them out of the Well—I would also need to ensure that they made it out of the castle too. During my time here, I had familiarized myself fairly well with the parts of the castle I was allowed access to, but I couldn’t just walk a small village of prisoners out through the hallways.
I thought back to the map that Kaleb had brought me, my mind retracing the hidden passages. All of them had led to something that was shaped like a . . .
My eyes rounded at the corners as realization hit me square and center.
The passagesallled to here.
I studied the stone walls, built strong enough to withstand cannon fire, noticing the odd patterns scattered every fifteen feet or so—arched doorways that had long been sealed off. I walked over to the closest one, my fingers running along the stone, tapping and feeling.
“What are you doing?” Boy asked curiously.
“I think there used to be hidden passages that all led to here,” I answered as I rasped my knuckles against the stone. “And I think this was one of them.”
“There are,” Boy said.
I stopped, my gaze shifting to him. “What do you mean? You know of the hidden hallways?”
He nodded quickly. “I used to play hide and seek in them with the other kids.”
Well, I’ll be damned.
“How familiar are you with them? Would you be able to get us to one if I got us out of here?” I asked, urgently.
Another quick nod, his eyes twinkling for the first time since I had met him. “I know all of them. There’s one not far from here. It’s hidden behind a huge portrait of one of the past kings. The painting is on hinges, so it swings open like a door.” He chuckled as he leaned in as if he were letting me in on a secret. He whispered, “We used to call it King Big Nose because the guy in the painting has a giant honker on him.”
I laughed softly. “I think that’s a great name.”
He beamed at me.
I smiled, my mind already forging ahead in thought. I knew how I was going to get them through the castle, I just didn’t know how I was going to get them out of the Well.
We had no weapons.
I scanned the area, chock-full of prisoners, searching for an answer. And as I looked from one to the other, and so on and so forth, an answer conjured in my mind.
