Beneath the Citadel

by Destiny Soria

  In a place like this, it was easy to get lost in those memories. In dreams of dark places.

  The citadel’s dungeons were precisely what dungeons were supposed to be. All gray sweating stone and thick oaken doors and iron bars. When he made himself listen, he could hear the sounds of other prisoners—whimpering, chattering manically. The skittering of rodents. The dripping of condensation. The only light came from the eye-level iron grate in the door of his cell: a tenuous golden glow from the lantern hanging in the corridor.

  If he closed his eyes, he was in the cavern of his nightmares, lost in the fathomless dark.

  But no, the cell wasn’t fathomless. Maybe three paces wide in every direction, with a bed of rotting straw and a putrid bucket in one corner. Evander didn’t mind any of that. His eyes were on the light. He had realized a few hours ago, before they had taken him in front of the council, that the golden gleam shone also in a thin line beneath the door. The gap was too narrow for a rodent or even a finger but plenty wide enough for a coin.

  Evander’s cell was near the head of the corridor. Straining to peer through the grating, he had seen them leading Cassa and Newt back from their sentencing before they’d come for him. And after they’d deposited him back in his cell, he’d seen the same two guards leading Alys up the stairs.

  He hadn’t bothered calling out. The four of them knew they were down here together, and he didn’t want to bring any unnecessary attention to himself. He’d already earned a few bruises during the interrogation. It wasn’t supposed to be a painful process, but the sentient who was reading his memories hadn’t appreciated his sense of humor and had called in a burly guard to impart the wisdom of keeping his mouth shut. Lesson learned, although the display in the Judgment Hall was necessary. Luckily, all his bones were still intact, and he was in possession of all his fingers and toes. He intended to keep it that way.

  Once the footsteps of Alys and the guards had faded and the door at the top of the stairs had slammed shut with a distant thud, Evander focused on the stationary guard in the alcove at the base of the stairwell. From his vantage point, Evander could see only half of the table where the guard sat devouring his evening meal. Though the light outside his cell was golden, a different light suffused the alcove, pale blue and altogether eerie. He personally had never understood the appeal of ghost globes as a source of illumination, regardless of how alchemically advanced Alys insisted they were. Pressing the side of his face against the iron, Evander studied the back of the guard’s left shoulder, the knife in his hand sawing at a tough piece of meat, the tin mug beside his plate. Evander smiled.

  Without stepping back from the door, he twitched his fingers at his side. A silver coin rolled from beneath the straw in the corner, dipping with the grooves in the floor until it fell onto its side beside Evander’s bare foot. He was careful not to let it touch his skin. Even the brief contact with the two coins in the Judgment Hall had made him dizzy. He wasn’t used to being so cautious with silver. Usually the metal was his comfort. His saving grace.

  But these particular coins had been coated in a very particular poison, and Alys was especially skilled at her trade.

  Another twitch of his fingers, and the coin shot under the door. Then came the tricky part. He couldn’t see the coin, only where he needed it to go. The silver line on his right forearm burned with his concentration. It didn’t hurt, but the insistent heat throbbed noticeably just below his skin. He could feel the silver like an extension of himself, moving farther and farther away, the connection weakening more and more. At some point, when he guessed the coin was still a few yards from its target, he lost it.

  Evander cursed under his breath and redoubled his concentration. The mark on his skin burned ever hotter. It was a curiously painless sensation, but he couldn’t shake the ridiculous notion that if he touched his arm to the wooden door, he would scorch it black. Finally, he felt the silver again.

  “Come on,” he coaxed in a whisper. It was like trying to move his foot after it had fallen asleep, awkward and ungainly.

  Impatient, he pressed harder against the door, straining to see a flash of the coin on the floor, pushing vigorously with his mind. He felt the coin shoot into the air before he saw it. Once he caught a glimpse of silver, he was able to regain control. He stopped it in midair, a few inches from the back of the guard’s head.

  Evander hissed a breath through his teeth. Cassa never would have let him live that down. He let the coin hover where it was rather than risk losing sight of it again. He wasn’t sure what he was waiting for. He just hoped whatever it was would happen soon.

  The guard continued his meal for five more minutes, oblivious to the coin floating just behind his head. Every second dragged on excruciatingly for Evander. He was sweating by now from the heat in his arm and the effort of his concentration. He was focused so completely on the silver that when the guard dropped his fork and bent to retrieve it, Evander almost missed his chance.

  He dropped the coin into the mug a split second before the guard straightened. He breathed a heavy sigh and sagged against the door. More than anything, he wanted to curl up on the floor and go to sleep, but he had to be sure. He watched until the guard took a long pull from the mug, and then he smiled. If Alys was right—and she always was—the poison on the coin would take effect soon.

  Summoning his dwindling strength, he licked his lips and let out a long, piercing whistle.

  One down.

  THREE

  NEWT

  Not that he would ever admit it to the others, but Newt hadn’t expected the dungeons to smell this bad. He kept thinking he would get used to the stench of his own waste mingled with mildew and sweat and whatever other invisible odors past prisoners had left behind in the tiny cell, but so far he still gagged every time he accidentally breathed too deeply.

  When they returned him from his sentencing, the brief reprieve above made the smell seem ten times fouler in the citadel’s underbelly. It took him almost five minutes to convince the meager contents of his stomach to remain where they were. The guards thought he was upset about the judgment and were surprisingly sympathetic. Newt knew it was because of how young he looked. He’d spent his whole life trying and failing to convince people of his age. It was even worse now that he’d thrown his lot in with Cassa, Evander, and Alys.

  Evander was already tall, and his perpetual frenetic twitching only made him take up more space. He had an easy confidence about him that usually made people assume he was older than sixteen.

  Cassa matched Newt in height and Evander in outward confidence, though hers was charged more with sheer determination. Most people couldn’t keep up with her, much less make assumptions about her age.

  Alys was the shortest of the group, and she was a perfectly balanced mixture of caution, logic, and acerbic wit. She’d always scared Newt a little bit, although that was something else he would never admit. People usually didn’t ask how old Alys was.

  Newt was short, spindly, and mousy. People usually thought he was at least three years younger than he was. At the moment he didn’t mind seeming weak and waifish, because the guards left him alone for the most part. He’d witnessed Evander and Cassa take a few extra cuffs courtesy of their smart mouths, and Newt didn’t feel a need to assert himself to those ends.

  The only need Newt had felt recently with any conviction was the need to vomit, but he wasn’t about to add to the stench of his cell, so he gritted his teeth and composed himself. Besides, he had other concerns at the moment.

  It had been ten minutes since the guard on patrol had passed his cell. If the man kept to the same pattern, then he would be returning down the corridor any minute. Newt sat down cross-legged, with his back to the door and his manacled hands resting in his lap. He’d been waiting as long as possible, afraid that the stationary guard by the stairwell would randomly decide to check on the prisoners. But he couldn’t put it off any longer.

  Newt breathed in deeply through his mouth and, with a wince
, popped his left thumb out of its socket. It didn’t hurt, but he’d never grown used to the uncanny sensation. With his thumb bent flat over the top of his hand, he maneuvered himself free of the cuff. He pushed his thumb back into place and repeated the process with his right hand. In less than a minute, the manacles were on the floor, and he was rubbing his chafed wrists with no small sense of satisfaction. The hard part wasn’t over yet though.

  He tucked one of the cuffs into his waistband and stood up. He eyed the distance between the top of the door and the ceiling (less than three feet) and the distance between the walls on either side (six feet, maybe less). A few hours ago, when he’d settled on his plan, not knowing when or if the others would be able to escape, the distances had seemed ideal. He wasn’t sure anymore, but he was also running out of time. He could hear cursing and jeering from the prisoners down the hall who had yet to resign themselves to quiet contemplation of their sins. The patrol guard was on his way.

  Newt swiped his hands over his thighs to dry his palms and placed them against the wall adjacent to the door. He walked his feet backward and up the opposing wall until he was stretched horizontally across the door, several feet off the ground. To his chagrin, his arms were already starting to burn, and his lungs tightened with the exertion. He hadn’t exactly had time to fully rest and recover from the absurdity that was Cassa’s plan to infiltrate the citadel. From the beginning, he had never been convinced that her plan for uncovering the council’s involvement in the mysterious disappearances throughout the city was going to work at all, but there was no way he was going to tell Cassa that. In all fairness, her plan to get into the citadel had worked. It was getting out again that had proved to be the problem.

  The guard was getting closer. Newt could hear his distant footfalls, thudding on stone. Ignoring his aching muscles, Newt alternated moving his hands and feet until he was suspended over the top of the doorframe. His breath came in short, tight gasps, but the hard part still wasn’t over yet. In the back of his mind, buried beneath the protests of his body and the ever-nearing footsteps of the patrol, he registered the sound of a single, reverberating whistle.

  Maybe he’d imagined it. He really hoped he hadn’t. He also really hoped he wasn’t about to die.

  Painstakingly, Newt moved his right hand across the wall, centering it with his shoulders, and then removed his left hand and pulled the manacles from his waistband. He only had one shot at this. He wasn’t even sure it would work, but he didn’t have any other ideas. He didn’t have Alys’s brains or Evander’s gift or—well, he actually didn’t know how Cassa would break free. Possibly irritate the guard into releasing her.

  Newt only had his body, which he’d learned as a child how to bend where others would break, how to hold steady where others would fall. A lesson from his father.

  When the footsteps were even with the cell door, Newt flung the manacles against the back wall. Iron clattered on stone, echoing tremendously. Newt held his breath, listening. Sweat trickled down his forehead, tickling his nose, dripping to the floor. He imagined he could hear the droplets as they landed, the breathing of the guard as he considered the source of the sound. The footsteps stilled.

  “What’s going on in there, kid?” The guard rapped on the metal grating in the door.

  Though his muscles trembled and went into spasm, Newt didn’t move. Didn’t break. Didn’t fall.

  The cell was illuminated slightly by the guard’s lantern as he pressed it against the grating, trying to get a better look inside. Could he see the manacles? Would he just fetch more guards?

  “Come on, kid,” the guard groaned. “I’m half an hour from the end of my shift. Couldn’t you figure out how to slip your cuffs on the next guy’s watch?”

  Newt remained still and silent. There was no way the guard could see him. He probably assumed Newt was sitting right against the door. It was the cell’s only blind spot—or the only one the guard knew about.

  “Just move to the back wall so I can get in there.” The guard was starting to sound peeved.

  Silence, silence. Newt was good at silence. Another lesson from his father.

  “For seers’ sake, kid. I don’t have time for whatever you’re playing at.”

  The whisper-hiss of steel against leather. He’d pulled his dagger. There was a brief rattling as he secured the lantern to the hook on the wall. The lock clunked heavily under the key. Newt’s life wasn’t flashing before his eyes, and he was grateful for that, but he was pretty sure he was about to die.

  He’d rather it be here and now than tomorrow in the catacombs below the citadel. He wouldn’t go quietly to the executioner, to have his memories stripped away by the death rites before meeting whatever gruesome demise awaited him. He wouldn’t give them that.

  The door flew open with surprising force. The guard—who had assumed he’d be pushing Newt’s weight as well—stumbled after it, off-balance. Newt didn’t wait, didn’t think. He dropped to the floor, kicked at the back of the guard’s knee, then threw his shoulder into the small of the man’s back. Without the slightest pause to even ascertain if the man was going to fall or if a blade would soon be buried in his back, Newt dove for the corridor, yanking the door as he went. It latched behind him, shuddering almost immediately with the guard’s weight as he shouted profanities at Newt.

  Newt didn’t stop to reflect on his success. He grabbed the lantern from the wall and ran. And as he ran, he let out two short, shrill whistles.

  Two down, two to go.

  FOUR

  ALYS

  Alys’s problem with the escape plan was that there wasn’t an actual escape plan at all. None of them had expected to get caught. Alys had, of course, mentioned to Cassa the wisdom in making provisions for the worst-case scenario. The high council was served by the best seers and diviners in the city. There was a good chance that someone was going to see them coming. Cassa had, of course, dismissed her out of hand. She didn’t take kindly to being reminded that her actions might be foretold.

  Vesper and Evander had sided with Cassa, as always, and Newt had refused to take a side, as always. So really, Alys should have known from the beginning that she couldn’t win. That didn’t stop her from being prepared though.

  As always.

  As they neared the bottom of the dungeon steps, she could tell that the two guards escorting her were moving more sluggishly than they had on the way to the Judgment Hall. She wasn’t exactly sure about the timing of the sleeping poison she’d doused Evander’s coins with, especially since she had no idea how much contact the guards had had with the silver when they had taken Evander before the council. Evander would have had no trouble getting the coins confiscated, but he couldn’t have controlled any variables beyond that. She’d been terrified they would both drop unconscious right at the high chancellor’s feet. That would’ve put an abrupt end to her semblance of an escape plan.

  Now that they were safely in the dungeons, she had relaxed somewhat. When they reached the bottom of the steps and she saw the man in the alcove slumped over his dinner, snoring soundly, she relaxed even more. Her escorts both laughed at the sight of their fellow guard.

  “After ten years on the job, you’d think he’d be able to hold his liquor,” said one of the guards as the other went to smack his dozing comrade on the back.

  “Come on, you oaf, wake up,” he said.

  When the man didn’t stir, the guard shook him harder. When that didn’t work, he picked up the tin mug by the man’s left hand and took a whiff.

  “Something’s wrong.” He slammed the cup back onto the table. “This is just coffee.”

  But by then the guard at Alys’s elbow had already slid to the ground, unconscious. Somewhere down the corridor came two whistles. Alys allowed herself the luxury of believing this might actually work.

  “Witch,” snarled the last standing guard. He drew his pistol. The light from the ghost globe glimmered on the steel, on the brassy rows of buttons on his dark blue uniform, on the w
hite of his bared teeth.

  “Apothecary, actually,” said Alys, backing away from him. But there wasn’t anywhere for her to go. He was blocking the corridor, and she couldn’t exactly run up the steps and back into the Central Keep.

  It occurred to her that he probably hadn’t handled a coin long enough for the poison to take effect. It occurred to her that the miscalculation was going to cost her her life. It also occurred to her, very forcefully and with no small amount of indignation, that this was all Cassa’s fault.

  She didn’t see Newt until he was only a few feet away from the guard and was swinging something—a lantern—in a high arc toward the back of the man’s head. There was a terrific thump, followed by another thump as the man fell to the floor, his gun clattering beside him. Alys met Newt’s eyes over the man’s limp form. He was flushed bright red and trembling but looked no worse for wear.

  “Good timing.” It was all she could think to say.

  Newt just nodded.

  “Get his keys.” Alys gestured toward the guard at the table, then pointed to the second door down the corridor. “Evander is there.”

  Newt nodded again and did as she said. Alys knelt down and searched the bodies of the two guards on the floor until she found the key to her manacles. She freed herself and cuffed the guard that Newt had knocked unconscious, just in case.

  Newt and Evander were coming back by then.

  “Aren’t you going to get these off me too?” Evander asked when he realized he was the only one still manacled.

  “Depends on how attached you are to your hand bones,” Newt said.

  “On second thought, I think I’ll keep them. You know as soon as I take them off, they’ll come into fashion.”

  “I have the key.” Alys stood up and tossed it to her brother. “Does anyone know where Cassa’s cell is?”