by H A Titus
"Okay," I said slowly.
"I thought it had just stayed with some of the other sidhé races, but apparently some fae have subscribed to the view as well." David shuddered.
So some weird group of fae wanted to eat my brain because they thought it would make them good with tech. Awesome. I rubbed my hands on my jeans. The clamminessof the cavern made everything feel sticky.
This is nuts. I had to stop myself from snorting. Understatement of the year. I could feel the edges of panic trying to creep in, sweep through my brain, but I shoved it back. Not gonna break down now. There's a way out. There's always a way out.
I glanced over at Eliaster. He was moving around, finally looking like he had some life in him. After a moment, he sat up, holding one side of his head like he had to hold in his brain.
"Any bright ideas, genius?" David snapped at him.
"Hey, back off. Give him a break," I said.
Eliaster leaned back, his eyes moving slowly around, taking in the other fae, the cavern. "Imigh sa diabhal." His voice was thick and slow.
David snorted. "This is your fault. Larae was right—we shouldn't have come into these tunnels. We should've left the relic until we knew what we were getting into. Until we'd rescued Marc."
"Are you kidding me?" I asked.
David glared at me, his eyes turning cold. "Are you siding with the fae now, Josh? Against your own race?"
"That's not what—"
"Just stop!" Eliaster yelled.
I jumped and moved away from him. Outside the cage, a few pale fae turned toward the cage, their dark, glittering eyes full of curiosity.
Eliaster noticed their stares and lowered his voice. "We've done nothing but fight, and I'm pretty sure that's the reason we've been plagued with problems."
David grunted and sat with his back to us, staring moodily out into the cavern.
I crouched next to Eliaster.
He rubbed the side of his face. "Before you ask—no, Josh, I have no ideas yet. But I'll figure something out. I always do." His voice had cleared a bit, but his accent was a bit stronger than usual.
"Except with your brother," I muttered.
Eliaster's jaw went tight, and he leaned away from me.
I shrugged and stood up. Fine. Why should I trust him with my fate if he was never going to trust me with anything? It was time I started taking care of myself.
Chapter 17
I turned to study the cavern outside our cage. It stretched several stories above our heads, pocked with tunnels and, above those, arches and windows that looked into more passages. One or two light globes hung near tunnel entrances—how were they getting electricity way down here?—but for the most part, flickering torches were jammed into holders along the walls. It created an eerie, shadow-shifting atmosphere. As usual, my stomach was churning like I had a bad case of food poisoning. I tried to ignore it and focused on the area outside our cage.
A few fae hung around the edges of the cavern, but most of the traffic was coming and going from one tunnel in particular. As I watched, a group of fae came in carrying armfuls of split, splintered wood. They tossed it into a pile in the middle of the cavern beside a large, blackened pit.
A voice echoed off the cavern walls, and I searched it out. The pale fae who had led the raiding party stood in a rough stone gallery, watching the fae bring in wood. At his terse words in Gaelic, some of the loitering fae leaped forward and began stacking the wood in the pit. The fae nodded, then turned and disappeared into the well-lit room behind him.
"Hmm," Eliaster muttered. "How nice of their leader to show us where he hangs out."
"Not that we can use it," I said. "Why didn't you tell me that there were fae zombies out there who wanted to eat my brains?"
"Because I didn't think they really existed until today," he hissed. "Stay quiet and help me think of a way out of this."
I raised an eyebrow. "What, the great and mighty Eliaster has no idea how to worm his way out of this one?"
"Hey, give me some credit. I've gotten you out of a lot of crap so far."
"You've also gotten me into a lot of crap."
Eliaster flicked his hands in the air and sat down. "Fine."
"'Fine' what?" David whispered. "There's nothing fine about this. I just hope Larae is all right and that she'll be able to get help—no way am I relying on you, Eliaster."
Eliaster rolled his eyes and pulled his knees up to his chest. "I'll think about it," he mumbled.
"Your 'thinking about it' is likely to get us all killed," David said under his breath.
Eliaster looked away.
David rolled his eyes and leaned against the wall.
Sheesh, we couldn't have more angst going around if we were a teenage soap opera.
I glanced around the cage once again. The bars looked like some kind of metal, but I knew it couldn't be iron, otherwise every fae in here would be sick. I flicked a bar with my fingernails. The dull thunk still gave me no clue and made my fingers ache.
Smart, Josh.
A couple of the fae working out in the cavern looked over at me and grinned. The overseer barked and they quickly averted their eyes and kept moving.
I stepped around Eliaster and toward the back of the cage.
The metal structure was all one piece, including a gridwork floor that eliminated the possibility of digging our way out, even if the ground had been soft soil instead of rock. I tilted my head back and looked at the gridwork over our heads. Each square looked too small for me to even fit a shoulder through, and I was the slimmest one in the group.
The back of the cage didn't sit flush with the cavern wall, thanks to the natural unevenness created by a thin, steady trickle of water. I reached between two bars and pressed my hand against the slick rock. This part of the cage was shadowed, and the space between the wall and the bars got no narrower than a forearm's length. If there was a way to get between the cage bars, I, and probably Eliaster, could squeeze our way past the cage and into the open.
But again, the bars were set no more than a hand's width apart, so I doubted we'd be getting between them anytime soon.
Dywor stood up beside me. "Look at this." His shaky fingers went out and touched a thick bar.
I squinted in the gloom. His fae eyes had picked out what I never would have noticed on my own—two bars fastened together by a thick, double-linked chain. His hand traced the chain up the bars, over my head, and down several bars over.
"Looks like it…broke…one time or another." His staccato mutterings covered up the gentle clanks the chain made as he tugged on it. "And, well-well, look." He nudged a padlock hanging close to the ground. "Dumb fae couldn't be bothered to fix it right. Just a wrapped chain and a padlock around the bars."
I eyeballed the space that the broken bars could create. Plenty big enough to slip out. I crouched down and squinted at the padlock. From what I could see, it was a cheap, ordinary double-locking Master padlock.
I grinned at Dywor. "Where did they put my bag?"
He nodded to the corner. All of our possessions except our weapons lay there in a heap, and I could see the corner of my messenger bag poking out from beneath David's backpack. Dywor grabbed it and held it out to me, his hands shaking so much he could barely grip the bag's strap.
"W-what are you planning?" he asked.
His stuttering had gotten worse too. He'd said earlier that he was almost out of rowan. I wondered how long it would be before he hit full withdrawal.
I pulled open the flap and dug past my computer and clothes. I couldn't use the pick set I'd made from paperclips for this—I needed a couple of shims. Those were not things I carried around regularly, since at college I'd mostly had to deal with forgetting the key to my dorm room. I pulled out a notebook with a plastic cover. It wasn't metal, but it was stiff enough that I might be able to make it work.
Eliaster moved to my side so that he blocked me from anyone's sight. "What are you doing?"
"You'll see." I tore the plasti
c cover off the notebook.
Now, what to use to shape this? I looked around the cage. There were no sharp corners easily accessible, and the fae hadn't left us with any of our weapons. I dug further into my bag and my finger caught on the edge of something sharp. I winced and pulled the object out. Huh. So that's where my fingernail clippers went.
It was going to take a while, but this was better than sitting. I flattened the plastic on the ground and went to work.
Eliaster, David, and Dywor watched in silence as I scraped out two rough M shapes and kept digging at the thin plastic until it finally ripped through. I folded one of the pieces and twisted it thoughtfully. It was a far cry from the pop can shims I'd used in the past, but it was stiff enough. It would work.
Just barely.
I moved to the broken section of the cage and pulled the padlock through to my side so I could see what I was doing. Eliaster hovered over my shoulder as I inserted the shims on either side of the lock where the shackle disappeared into the body. I twisted the shims around, biting my lip.
Please catch, c'mon… If this didn't work, I'd never live it down. If we even lived.
"I hope Larae has a better plan than you," David muttered.
"Shut it," I snapped, resisting the urge to give the shims a vicious twist. Yeah, like I needed one of them to tear apart inside the lock now. That would be just wonderful.
The back side of the shackle gave an almost indiscernible pop. I grinned and started on the other side. "Surprised you didn't know about this, Eliaster."
He grunted. "I usually prefer to enter legally. How do you know this?"
"This particular skill came thanks to my sister. We were only eleven months apart, so we were in high school at the same time. She used to think it hilarious to change out the padlock on my locker in between classes. She also liked to trick me into going outside, then lock me out of the house—until I got to where it wasn't a challenge to open most cheap locks anymore." I slid the shim around and this time felt the lock begin to give.
And then a thought struck me.
What if this wasn't a regular old padlock? What if the fae had somehow trapped the padlock to trigger some horrific spell? I wouldn't put it past their twisted sense of humor.
"Are you almost done?" Eliaster looked over his shoulder. "I don't think they're paying attention to us, but I'd rather not risk it."
I took a deep breath and pulled the shim into place. The lock snapped open, and I gingerly undid it from the chains. Eliaster started unwinding the chain from the bars, carefully gathering it in his hands so it wouldn't rattle.
I grinned. Finally.
David clapped me on the shoulder. "Okay, so that worked better than I thought. Good job." He squinted at the gap between the cavern wall and the cage. "I don’t think Dywor or I will be able to fit back there."
I nodded. David had too much of a football player's build. Even though Dywor looked like a sack of bones, he was still a thick-set sack of bones.
"That's what I figured," Eliaster said.
"Of course you'd already thought of it." David tapped my arm, then nodded to one of the tunnels across the cavern.
"That's the way we were brought in. I bet Larae went back to the Chicago Market to get help from Aifric, so that's probably the way you should go."
Eliaster chewed his lower lip. "You really think Larae would go all the way back to Chicago? That's gonna waste valuable time."
David grimaced. "It would be more like her to try a rescue attempt on her own, yeah."
"Well…" Eliaster's voice trailed off, and he glanced up at the gallery where the fae leader had disappeared.
Another group of fae came into the cavern, carrying armloads of wood. All of it was ragged and broken, more like enormous splinters than logs. There must have been a ruined building nearby that they were scavenging from.
"We don't have much time to make up our minds," Eliaster said.
"It can't hurt to see if we can find her lurking around. Or, failing that, getting a bargaining chip would be nice. We can leave some sort of sign for her to follow if we can't find her," I said.
Eliaster gave me a cryptic look, the faintest flicker of surprise crossing his stony face.
"Or something," I added.
"I don't think so," David said. "That's too easily sabotaged. We need to go back and look for her."
"And even you know that's too time-consuming," Eliaster said. "So why are you insisting on it when all you've wanted to do is cut corners so far? Larae can take care of herself."
David frowned. "That's gentlemanly."
Eliaster's jaw tensed, but he turned away rather than answer. He swung the broken piece of the cage to one side and slid into the gap between the rock wall and the iron bars. He pressed his hands into the bars and scooted sideways. As soon as I had enough room, I followed. A few of the other fae in the cage stood up, watching our progress. Dywor growled at them in Gaelic, and another fae answered him.
"What's he saying?" I asked.
"He says you're going to get everyone slaughtered," Eliaster said. "Never mind that's what will happen anyway if they don't escape."
I bumped into his shoulder. "Why're you stopping?"
He grunted and leaned to the side as far he could, digging his feet into the ground. We were less than half an arm's length from the edge. The gap between the wall and the cage was narrower than it had been at our entry point. The bars dug into Eliaster's chest.
"I think—" He pushed again and grimaced. "I'm stuck."
"Aw, c'mon!" I resisted the urge to slam my fist into the iron bars. If he blew this escape attempt…
Eliaster blew out a long breath and squirmed, finally slipping past the tight spot and out from behind the cage. He leaned over and pressed a hand to his chest, grimacing.
I slid free and crouched, watching the fae coming and going from the cavern. As soon as I was sure no one had noticed our escape, I snuck around to the front of the cage. The lock keeping the door shut was another simple, modern padlock.
I stuck my hand through the bars and David passed me the plastic shims. I twisted them into the lock.
"Hurry," Eliaster hissed, so close his breath hit the back of my neck.
"Dude, gross." I elbowed him back.
Dywor's clammy hand tapped my shoulder. "Look! That's Larae!"
I twisted around. In the stone gallery where we'd spotted the fae leader earlier, I could see the silhouette of a girl. She turned to look out over the cavern, and the torchlight played on her face. It was Larae.
Eliaster raised his hand, catching her attention. Her eyes widened.
"Watch it!" David shouted, backing away from us.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eliaster take off for the cavern entrance. A fae lunged at me. I dodged and ran into another one. The fae grabbed my arms and slammed me against the bars. Air huffed from my lungs. I curled up as much as I could. The only reason I stayed upright was because of the fae holding me in place. He jerked me around, shoved me into the bars again.
Three fae tackled Eliaster. He fought back, but his punches and kicks seemed slower than usual. One of the fae got in a punch to his temple. Eliaster staggered and dropped to his knees, pressing his hands against the sides of his face. The two grabbed his arms and dragged him back to the cage.
The fae gripped my jaw and squeezed hard. "Not smart, little human, trying to escape like that. Not smart at all."
Another fae grabbed my captor's arm. "If you hurt the human, Tuathal will have your hide."
The fae stared past me into the cage, his eyes probing into the shadows. He turned and glared at
Eliaster. "Humans should all die, and the fae who fraternize with them should be shunned as Unseelie traitors."
"Briseadh agus brú do chnámha," Eliaster replied.
One of his captors slapped him across the back of the head. Eliaster cried out and hunched his shoulders. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes.
Larae's voice rang out across t
he cavern. "Drop what you're doing!"
She stood at a different gallery opening, beside the leader of the cannibal fae. Her hand held a knife to his throat. I hadn't thought the guy's skin could get any paler, but a bleached sheet couldn't begin to compete with him now. Even from where I stood, I could see the thin trickle of blood sliding down one side of the fae's neck.
"Good girl," David murmured.
None of the fae spoke. They were all staring at Larae in horror. Some of them had their hands stretched out, wordlessly pleading for their leader.
"Release the new prisoners," Larae said, biting out each word. "Let them go, and your precious Tuathal will remain unharmed."
A flurry of whispers ran through the fae. Tuathal raised his hand and silenced them, then spoke quickly in Gaelic.
"What's he saying?" I asked Eliaster.
Eliaster frowned. "He says he and Larae made a deal, that she must be obeyed immediately."
Sure enough, as soon as the words left the guy's mouth, the fae holding Eliaster and I released us. One of them pushed me aside and unlocked the cage door.
I glanced hesitantly at Eliaster. This was way too easy. They were going to pull some trick or something…right?
Eliaster stepped off to the side and made sure no one was standing behind him. "I think we're good."
"Of course we're good, numbskull! Stand around much longer and I'll leave you to be crow-bait," Larae yelled.
Dywor handed me my messenger bag and the plastic shims as he walked out of the cave. I nodded in thanks and tugged the strap over my head. For a second, we hesitated—then Eliaster stepped forward. David, Dywor, and I followed him closely, weaving around the fae as they stood stock-still, their pale eyes following us. Their silence made me jumpy—at any minute I expected to be clubbed over the head or feel them grabbing at me. Why weren't they protesting more? If David and I were supposed to be some kind of delicacies, why weren't they putting up more fuss? Their silent stares made the hair on my arms and neck prickle.
We stopped at one of the tunnel entrances, and I looked back for Larae. The fae leader, Tuathal, stood alone at his gallery window, staring after us. Even from here I could see the tight, angry lines on his face.
