by C. Greenwood
And there would be no medicine to be had. Worse, after the conversation I had just overheard, I feared what our two “rescuers” would do if they discovered in the morning that my brother was only growing sicker. Their threat to kill him rather than allow him to slow us down was fresh in my mind. So too was the suggestion that this powerful master of theirs, whoever he was, meant to use us as political pawns. It appeared that, wherever these people were taking us, we would be as much prisoners in their hands as we had been in the tower. I was certain Cadvan hadn’t known this when he had sent us away with them. The old servant would never have betrayed Ferran and me in such a way. These men must have approached him with false promises.
My decision made itself. I had to get Ferran far from here and hide us both away someplace safe. Somehow we must escape our keepers.
CHAPTER FOUR
I woke Ferran, pressing a hand over his mouth in case he should cry out. I needn’t have worried. My brother was too far gone to make more than a muffled questioning noise at being dragged so suddenly from his sleep.
“We have to go, Ferran,” I whispered. “We need to sneak out of here very quietly, without anyone seeing us.”
He looked at me sleepily, and for a minute I thought he didn’t hear me at all.
“This isn’t really a game after all, is it, Luka?” he asked softly.
“Not exactly,” I admitted, helping him into his boots. There was no time to say more.
I snatched up the traveling pack from where I had left it against the wall and slipped it onto my back.
When I opened the door, I feared I would be confronted by our captors outside. But the corridor remained dark and empty. With Ferran leaning weakly against me, we went down the hall.
I winced on the stairs, as they creaked beneath our feet. But it was impossible to move lightly and carefully while propping Ferran up. Together we made our clumsy descent.
At the bottom of the stairs, a cautious survey of the big room revealed the innkeeper was nowhere in sight now. The flames in the fireplace had burned low but cast just enough light for me to see both our keepers slumped unconsciously over the corner table, probably passed out drunk. I was grateful for the opportunity they presented us.
Quiet as a pair of mice, we crossed the big open room. I had planned to make for the same front entrance we had arrived through earlier. But an unexpected noise from the direction of our enemies startled me so that I leapt through a nearer doorway, drawing Ferran along with me.
Looking back, I found our keepers hadn’t woken. One must have simply stirred in his sleep.
The new room we stumbled into was a kitchen with a long table and a big open fire. There was some kind of meat roasting on a spit over the fire, and the smell of it made my mouth water.
I first thought we were alone in the room but then realized there was a plump woman with her back to us, kneading dough on a counter. She must have heard us enter, because she whirled suddenly. Upon seeing us, she looked startled.
“What are you filthy little rats doing sneaking around in my kitchen?” she demanded, her thick eyebrows lowering fiercely. “Looking for something to steal, are you? How did you even get in here?”
Dragging Ferran with me, I made for the door across the room. I hoped it would let us out into the street. The angry woman’s fingers snagged hold of my coat collar, her sharp nails scratching the back of my neck. But I wriggled free.
Throwing the door open, Ferran and I plunged into sudden darkness. We had exited into an alley with tall buildings rearing up on either side, blocking any illumination from moon or stars. My eyes unadjusted to the inky blackness, I moved forward blindly, desperate to escape not only the shouting woman but our two keepers who must surely be roused by the noise she was making.
Even Ferran must have been alert to the urgency of our situation. As if finding new strength, he stopped slumping against me and broke into a lurching run. I led the way down the alley, careful not to go so fast he couldn’t keep up.
The woman stood in the kitchen doorway, screaming obscenities at us, as we made our clumsy escape.
By the time we reached the end of the alley, I was getting used to the dark. I led us across an empty street, and we plunged down a different parallel alley. I had no idea where we were going. I only knew we couldn’t stop. Not even when Ferran’s pace soon slowed and he nearly collapsed. I dragged his arm around my neck and told him to lean his weight on me. Then we went on. Ferran was wheezing, and my own breath was coming in uneven gasps. It was clear we couldn’t go on much longer. But we had to find shelter, someplace where our enemies wouldn’t find us.
It was cold out, and a gray fog crept up from the street, swirling around our ankles and making it harder to see where we were going.
Ferran, leaning against me, suddenly went still and became a dead weight.
“Ferran!” I cried, as his arm slipped from around my neck and he fell to the paving stones.
I knelt at my brother’s side and shook him, but he didn’t respond. Panic clawed at my insides. I pressed my ear to his chest and was relieved to hear his heart still beating. But his breathing was so shallow his chest hardly moved.
CHAPTER FIVE
I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t felt so helpless since the day Father was killed. I couldn’t linger in the open with my enemies surely not far behind. But neither could I leave Ferran. I might carry him a short distance but to where?
At this moment, I heard the sound of echoing footsteps at the mouth of the alley. Fear washed over me like a wave of icy water. We were discovered.
Only the approaching footsteps weren’t coming from the direction we had fled. This was a single set of steps, and it came from up ahead.
A second later, a figure emerged from the darkness.
I stared and thought my eyes were deceiving me. The approaching young woman was unlike any girl I had ever seen, resembling a character from a fairy story. She was tall and beautiful, her flowing hair an impossible shade of silver. The mist swirled around her like a magic glow as she drew nearer.
She held out her hand toward us, beckoning.
I didn’t move, unwilling to go near a strange apparition, however magnificent.
My disobedience appeared to annoy her.
“Come on! Follow me,” she commanded in an impatient hiss that didn’t match her graceful looks.
The glow I had imagined around her dissolved, as she broke free of the fog and came to stand a short distance away. On closer inspection, she was only a skinny peasant girl dressed in rags. I couldn’t see the details of her face in the shadows, but I suspected she wasn’t much older than me.
“Hurry up and follow me!” she ordered again. “If you don’t want to get caught, we have to go now.”
Even as she spoke, she was looking past us in the direction we had come. Her stance was alert, as if she sensed some approaching presence I did not.
“How do you know we’re being chased?” I asked.
But she was already backing away and glancing over her shoulder the way she had come. Was she going to disappear without us?
Although I couldn’t see or hear any approaching danger, I followed her lead. There was no time for questions. I lifted Ferran into my arms. It should have been easy. He was small for a boy of ten, and his time in the tower had left him pathetically wasted. But poor food and lack of exercise had left me weak too. It was all I could do to lift the motionless bundle.
The girl was already running away, fading into the darkness ahead.
“Wait,” I called after her, stumbling along as quickly as I could with my burden.
I couldn’t see her anymore but followed the sound of her footsteps ringing over the paving stones. She must have slowed for us, because those echoing footsteps never got too far ahead.
We turned down one dark lane and then another until I no longer had any idea which way we had come. The shapes of dark buildings looming on either side of us looked so alike I had the nervous feeling w
e might be running in circles.
Now I saw our strange guide where the street ended up ahead. The mysterious silver-haired girl was waiting for us in the deep shadows near the boarded-up entrance of a crumbling timber structure. We had reached a dead end, I realized. There was nowhere left to run.
But as I neared the girl, she swung aside a loose board hanging over the entrance. This revealed a hole that looked into the deep black interior of the building.
Without pausing to see if I would follow, the girl darted through the hole. My awkward burden made it hard to squeeze in after her, but turning sideways, I managed to carry Ferran through.
Inside, I was confronted with a darkness so complete I couldn’t take another step. I stood, uncertain, until a light suddenly flared up.
It was a small light, no bigger than a candle’s flame. But it was a relief to see the comforting glow coming from the girl’s hand. It cast dancing shadows on the walls and illuminated a dilapidated room with a low ceiling. The plaster walls were cracked and sagging with age, looking as if they could collapse at any moment. The floorboards were rotten, and here and there were several large gaps.
This wasn’t what I had in mind when I had wished for a safe place to hide.
“Where are we?” I asked my strange guide, who stood silently watching me take in my surroundings.
“This used to be a cheap lodging house,” she answered. “But nobody comes here now. Nobody but me.”
“Why have you brought us here?”
“You looked like you could use a bit of help. A man was chasing you through the alleys, and I thought you wouldn’t be running from him unless he had a cruel purpose.”
“I didn’t see anyone following,” I said, wondering how she had seen one of our enemies when I hadn’t.
“I have an extra sense for these things,” she explained mysteriously. “Sometimes I can tell when a presence approaches, especially a dangerous one. I’ve learned to be careful.”
“Yet you helped a pair of strangers?” I was skeptical.
She shrugged. “Luckily for you two, I sense no danger from either of you.”
She turned suddenly and began to move off across the room, taking the light with her.
“Come on,” she called over her shoulder. “There’s a place upstairs where you can put the little boy down.”
I had more questions about her intervention but wasn’t about to linger in the dark alone. Besides, Ferran was growing heavier in my arms and I couldn’t hold him much longer.
I followed the girl, who led me through a doorway and up a leaning flight of stairs. Here too the floorboards were rotten, and I had to avoid the broken ones. A single wrong step could send Ferran and me both plunging through the floor. It would be a long fall.
Careful as I was to watch where I was going, when I spared a glance upward after the girl in the lead, I nearly missed a step. For the first time, I realized the light she carried was no candle. Instead, a tiny glowing flame hovered in midair over her open palm.
“How are you doing that?” I asked, coming to a standstill at the top of the landing.
“What? This?” She glanced at the light. “If you don’t like it, I can do this instead.”
She flicked her fingers, and the flame winked out. Total darkness descended, swallowing us all. A second later, a new light appeared. This time it was a fist-sized ball floating above her hand, casting off an eerie blue light.
“You’re a mage,” I realized, feeling stupid that I hadn’t realized it before.
“I wouldn’t call myself one of those. But I do use magic. Does it bother you?”
Her stare was challenging.
“No, not at all,” I hastened.
There had been a mage in my father’s service once, and he was a clever and useful man, from what I remembered. Still, I had never expected to encounter such a unique talent in a place like this.
The girl gave a satisfied nod and walked on. When she and her magic light passed through an open doorway, I hurried after.
We entered a tiny room that might have been an attic or storage space. The walls were stained with mildew, and the one window was spider-webbed with cracks. Old rags had been stuffed into the biggest cracks, maybe to keep out the cold night air that still managed to find its way in. There was a pile of dirty blankets on the floor in the corner.
“You can put the boy over there,” my rescuer instructed. “It’s my bed, but he needs it more than I do.”
I set Ferran down gently on the heap of blankets. He stirred, waking.
“Luka?” he asked sleepily, looking around the unfamiliar environment.
“Everything’s all right,” I reassured him. “A friend is helping us.”
“What friend?”
His question was a good one. I turned an inquiring look on the girl who had guided us here.
“Ada is my name,” she supplied.
A lifetime of ingrained manners made me start to return the introduction. But I cut off abruptly, suddenly remembering I couldn’t say my real name or Ferran’s. Our ragged disguises would have no purpose if we went around introducing ourselves as the late congrave’s sons. I scrambled for something else. Anything else.
“We are Rideon and Ardeon,” I said in a rush, latching onto the first two names that popped into my head. Immediately I grimaced. Why had I chosen the names of two heroes from a fairy story? Never mind. It was too late to change them.
The girl, Ada, raised an eyebrow, and I was sure she could tell I was lying even if she didn’t recognize the fairy-tale names. She had probably heard Ferran call me “Luka” a moment ago anyway. But she didn’t question me.
To distract Ferran, who was looking on in confusion, I told Ada, “Thank you for bringing us here. Those men we were running from meant us harm and would have done it if you hadn’t intervened. We had no place to go.”
“Everyone needs help sometimes,” she said. “You can stay here tonight or as long as you need. I’ve been living out of this house for weeks.”
“Really? Where is your family?” I asked.
“That’s a long story.” Her answer was vague. This time it was her turn to change the subject. “You both look hungry. I have some fruit, if you don’t mind that it’s bruised and a little old.”
“You share your fruit, and we’ll share our biscuits,” I offered, sliding my traveling pack off my back.
I rummaged inside the pack until I found the dry food Cadvan had sent us.
The girl left her ball of magic light hovering in the air, suspended over nothing, while she went to pry up a loose floorboard. Hidden in a hollow space beneath was a torn canvas bag, where she apparently stored her supplies like treasure.
“You can’t leave food lying unguarded around here,” she said, seeing my surprise. “How do you think I came by it myself?”
“You stole it?” My voice made it clear how dishonorable I found this. I hadn’t been raised to thieve.
Ada shrugged. “Only because I had to. My people learned long ago to do what it takes to survive in these provinces.”
“Who are your people?” I asked. Everything about this girl seemed to lead to more questions.
“My ancestry is Skeltai,” she explained. “We came over from the Black Forest generations ago. I wasn’t born with these for nothing.”
She flipped back her long silver hair, revealing slender ears that sloped into delicate points at the tips.
She added, “We aren’t trusted or liked much in these parts, mainly because people are uncomfortable with our natural talent. Most of us are magickers.”
It was strange to think Ada’s powers would count against her. Back home, my father had always expressed respect for those who possessed the unusual skill.
My rumbling stomach reminded me of the business at hand. While I spread out our meager meal, Ada brought a jug of water. Then she and I sat down cross-legged on the floor. I propped Ferran up in his pallet and gave him a biscuit and one of Ada’s bruised pieces of frui
t.
“Would Father be angry?” my brother asked me, hesitating over the fruit.
I didn’t think he had been paying much attention to my conversation with Ada, but he must have heard the remark about the food being stolen.
I glanced at Ada. “Father would want us to do what we must to stay alive,” I told him.
Although I felt like I hadn’t eaten in a year, I forced myself to take only a small portion. We needed to make our food last as long as possible. Besides, I didn’t want to repay Ada’s generosity by eating all she had.
I finished quickly and, while the others were still busy, went to the window and looked out into the night. The glass was so filthy and the street below so dark I could make out nothing. For all I knew, our enemies could be closing in and we wouldn’t realize it until it was too late. I didn’t even know at this point what enemies to focus on. The two men who had “rescued” us only to carry us like hostages to their mysterious master? The soldiers from the tower who were probably combing the province, looking to recapture us? I wasn’t sure which to fear most.
As if reading my mind, Ada suddenly said to my back, “I’m going downstairs to keep an eye out. Nobody else has ever found the entrance to this place yet, but it doesn’t hurt to be safe.”
I felt I should offer to join her, but when I tried to speak, all that came out was a yawn. The exhaustion of the past couple of days was catching up to me.
She must have seen it.
“Stay and rest,” she commanded, heading out the door. “I’m putting the light out now so nobody sees it through the window.”
As quickly as that, the ball of blue light winked out, and Ferran and I were alone. I hoped Ada could make it down the stairs in the dark, but I supposed she knew the way well.
Blundering in the blackness, I went to the blankets in the corner and sank down beside Ferran. My brother had been so quiet I thought him asleep again.
