I scrambled to my knees, even though it felt as if a knife was being driven through my head, it ached so badly.
“The door’s unlocked,” Caldren said. “I guess Bran’s been here.”
Caldren opened the door, and he gave me a grin and a wink.
Jaik scooped me up off the ground. “You’re bleeding?” His eyes blazed furiously.
“It’s just a head injury,” I managed weakly. “Part of what makes me, me.”
Jaik did not look amused. Then he paused, as if he were listening to something from far away. “Lucien just got hung so I’m not really sure we should walk out of here with Lucien.”
I gasped. “Lucien’s dead?”
“Not your Lucien,” Jaik promised. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
“You know it’s… me?”
He nodded. “Your memory leaked into me and I remember you blasting flame. You were a pyro of a little kid. An absolute hazard. Seems about right.”
“Let’s move,” Caldren said, as he glanced over his shoulder. “I hear guards coming. I think our way out is blocked. Unless we just walk right past them. Can you change your face?”
“I can,” I said. “I’ve got an idea.”
“We’re definitely all going to die,” Caldren said lightly.
I use the spell to change my face. Jaik stared at me in amazement, and I reached up and touched my nose. “What? Is my face crooked?”
“No,” he said. “I just can’t believe you can do that so easily.”
I wondered what he meant, but Caldren seized my arm and dragged me out of the cell, just in time as a couple of guards headed toward us.
“Move it,” Jaik growled, using his bossiness for good for once. The two of them marched me down the hallway.
The guards moved to one side to let us pass. The memories of being in a dungeon before rose sharply, the sour human scent in my memories mixing with the stench down here. With it came a rush of panic that I had to fight down.
We were so close to freedom, but still so far away.
We passed the guards. They wore cloaks and masks over their mouths and noses, as the guards did to confuse the prisoners, but I caught a sharp, feminine gaze. Was that Faleen? If so, this was no typical group of guards.
The assassins had come down to make sure that Lucien Finn had gone to his grave.
She watched us as we went past, then turned back to talk to another guard. I exhaled under my breath as we turned the corner.
“Stop,” she called suddenly.
“Can’t do it,” Jaik said under his breath. “Caldren always does the opposite of what he’s told.”
“You just can’t resist picking at me even when we’re in a dungeon, can you?” Caldren groused back.
The three of us broke into a run, plunging through the dungeons’ twisted passageways that rose up and down.
We sprinted desperately through the castle and eventually reached the rooftop.
“Time to fly,” Jaik said.
“Not quite so fast,” a female voice said from behind us. I turned to find the woman who had stared at me in the dungeon. She pushed her hood back and offered us a smile. “Go ahead. Try to shift.”
Faleen was flanked by three other assassins. An enormous brick of a man with a human face stood right beside her, each of his fists the size of my face. A tall, slender man palmed a bottle of potion, looking eager to use it. A short, slightly rotund man with a jolly face held a distinctly un-jolly garotte.
Jaik’s face tightened with strain, but nothing happened.
“You’re not the only one who has purchased servants,” she said. “I have my own friends. Friends who have access to your clothes.”
I grabbed my shirt to yank it off my body so that I could shift and fight her as a dragon. I wasn’t sure I could shift though, when Teris’s magic compelled me to keep my identity a secret.
Jaik had reacted as if I was unusually powerful. Could I beat Teris’s magic?
“I really don’t mind murdering them before we leave,” Caldren offered pleasantly. He was always so accommodating.
“I don’t want to waste the time,” Jaik said.
But they rushed us, and we didn’t have a choice. The tall man threw a bottle of potion at us and a wall of flame rushed toward us, but Caldren raised his hands, dousing the flames.
The man leapt through the flames and attacked Caldren, drawing two short swords out of his cloak.
Jaik tried to rip his shirt off, but the enormous brick of a man started toward him. Jaik raised his fists. “Aren’t we old friends, Feligan?”
“I’ve always hated you,” Feligan growled.
Caldren glanced over from where he was furiously fighting the man with the sword and said, “See? Everyone hates you.”
“It doesn’t exactly hurt my feelings to be despised by the kingdom’s worst scum,” Jaik shot back. The guy swung at him, a blow that could’ve demolished a small building, but Jaik was quick and ducked beneath his arm. He came up, lashing out with a foot to trip the man—but he was such a brick, it didn’t make an impact. He tried to stomp on Jaik, but Jaik was already dancing to one side.
Faleen headed toward me with a quick, confident stride. Meanwhile the little man with the garrote edged around, looking for his chance to get behind someone. I kept a wary eye on him as I circled Faleen.
“You’re the one who sewed that charm into Lucien’s clothes. Why?” I asked Faleen.
“I am King Pend’s right hand,” she boasted, raising her chin high. “Moving in the shadows, unseen—the same as most women are in this kingdom. But I found a way to use that to my advantage.”
“You’re the one who tried to kill me when the house blew up. You tried to frame Branok, didn’t you?”
“You talk a lot for someone fighting for her life,” she said.
“Yeah, people complain about that.”
The little man with the garotte darted toward Jaik’s back; Jaik was being pressed steadily back toward the edge of the rooftop, so busy ducking the giant’s blows and trying to land his own that he couldn’t see the man about to attack him from behind.
I darted toward the man with the garotte and pushed him off the rooftop. He screamed as he plummeted off the side.
I whirled to find Faleen right behind me. She grabbed my arms and the two of us struggled, there on the very edge. I caught glimpses of the crystal blue sea far beneath us, and our breathing was loud and ragged in the quiet air.
“Time to fly,” she snarled, repeating Jaik’s words, then shoved me. I’d been expecting it, and I side-stepped.
Right into the path of the giant, who had been waiting. Jaik grabbed for him, but it was too late.
The giant’s elbow slammed into my side.
Jaik rushed to grab me, but he wasn’t able to catch my hand. The last thing I saw was his horrified face and outstretched hand, and Caldren behind him holding off the giant and Faleen to protect Jaik.
As I plummeted, I tried to find my wings, hoping my terror would cause them to take over the way they always had before.
It really was time to fly.
A Note From May
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