The Girl at Midnight (16 page)

“The bracelet,” Ivy said, eyes closed tightly against the
memory. “The one Perrin gave you. He tracked it. He didn’t want to, but they tortured him. They made him do it.”

Echo spit out a curse and fumbled at her wrist. What sounded like leather and beads smacked against the floor. Ivy let the moments pass in silence, and slowly, the memory of Perrin’s cries faded into nothingness. She listened to Echo breathing, letting the constancy of the sound steady her. After a few minutes, she felt almost sane again.

Echo sighed, the noise soft in the quiet of the dungeon. “You know, I’m getting real sick of people tossing me in prison cells.”

“What?” Ivy asked. “Who else tossed you in a prison cell?”

“Altair,” Echo said. “Naturally.”

Ivy plucked at the straw beneath her knees. “I want to say I’m surprised, but I’m not. Not even a little bit. Not at all.”

Echo’s laugh was tired but genuine. “Yeah, yeah. Now shut up so I can figure out how to get us out of here. That handsy guard stole my tools.” Grabbing the bars of her cell, she shouted,
“And your amenities leave something to be desired!”
With a huff, she settled back against the wall, crossing her arms and kicking her legs out in front of her.

Ivy went quiet, pressing her forehead against the cool metal of the cell’s bars. It wasn’t comfortable, but it reminded her of where she was and whom she was with. Echo was here, and together, they would escape. They had to. They couldn’t not. The seconds ticked by, and the silence thickened, as if the air itself were coagulating with Ivy’s despair.

“So,” Ivy said. She needed to hear something, anything, besides that infernal drip. “What’s the plan?”

Ivy heard more than saw Echo shift restlessly.

“I don’t know,” Echo admitted. “Weep. Panic. Die horribly.”

The laughter that bubbled its way out of Ivy’s throat was tinged with no small amount of hysteria. “Great pep talk.”

“You’re welcome,” Echo said. “I tried really hard with that one.”

Silence fell again, and Ivy began to count the drips.
One drip, two drips, three drips
.

“Ivy?”

“Yeah?”

“What happened to Perrin?”

The memory of Perrin’s screams as Tanith asked him again and again to tell her about Echo roared back to life. For a moment, the blood Ivy smelled was fresh, and the fire that burst from Tanith’s hands lit up the whole room. She buried her fingernails into her palms, and the pain brought her back to herself.

“I think they killed him.” Her voice sounded like a stranger’s. With any luck, the numbness she was beginning to feel would take her soon so she wouldn’t have to think or feel or fear anything anymore. “He hasn’t moved in a while.”

Echo scrambled to her knees and snaked a hand through the bars, reaching out for Ivy. At least Echo’s hands were free to do that. Ivy pulled at her chains, rattling them like some vengeful ghost. No matter how desperately she needed to feel Echo’s hand in her own, to feel assured that she wasn’t going to die alone, forgotten in a cold, dirty cell, the shackles held her back.

“I can’t,” Ivy said, swallowing around the growing lump in her throat. “I can’t reach you.”

And then she was crying, tears burning little paths through the layer of soot and blood on her cheeks. Echo whispered soft, soothing nonsense, but Ivy couldn’t hear anything over the sound of her own sobs and that godforsaken drip.

“Ivy,” Echo said again. She’d been calling her name for a solid ten minutes, but Ivy was inconsolable. The sound of her crying had faded to a quiet sniffling, but she refused to speak.

“Ivy,” Echo said again in a harsh whisper. “It’s gonna be okay, I promise. The Ala and Altair were looking for you when I left. They’ll find us. I know they will.”

Ivy mumbled something so quietly, Echo couldn’t quite catch it. “What was that?”

Raising her head to meet Echo’s eyes through the bars, Ivy cleared her throat and spoke, voice raw from crying. “I said, they won’t come after us. Not here. And Altair threw you in a jail cell, so why would he come looking for you?”

“Because in Altair’s twisted little world, he’s the only one who gets to mess with his own people.”

“But you’re not his people.”

Under normal circumstances, Ivy would never have said
something like that quite so bluntly, but a day in a Drakharin dungeon would take a toll on anyone’s tact. And even if the words were harsh, Echo couldn’t deny that they were true. Altair didn’t care about her. He
tolerated
her. And now he was probably glad she was out of his hair.

“Yeah,” said Echo, sitting back against the wall. “And he never lets me forget it.”

Ivy’s face softened, and her big black eyes were clearer than they’d been minutes earlier. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean—”

“No, I know. It’s fine.” Echo sighed. “And you’re right, he won’t come looking for me. I could rot, for all Altair cares, but he
will
come looking for you.” Echo glanced at the pile of robes that Ivy had assured her was Perrin. “And him.”

Ivy nodded listlessly and looked down. “If you say so.”

The moments passed in silence. Echo felt her hope dwindle, dripping away, drop by drop, like the leak that had been driving her insane since she’d noticed it. How Ivy had been down here as long as she had, listening to that lonely, persistent drip, without going mad was a mystery.

The guards had rotated shifts twice since she’d been dropped off, so when the heavy iron door creaked open again, Echo didn’t bother looking up. She busied herself braiding tiny pieces of straw plucked off the dungeon floor. A single set of footsteps approached. Only when they stopped in front of her cell did she look up. Caius stood on the other side of the bars, peering down at her, green eyes inscrutable. He’d washed away the blood on his hands, but the fabric of his tunic was darker where Ribos had leaned against him. The blood was probably still tacky to the touch.

“Missed me already?” Echo asked. She resumed braiding
the straw, but her hands were shaking too much to make it even. “You seemed so busy before, what with all the blood and the horror and the dying.”

Caius eyed the main door. The Firedrakes were on the other side, separated from this room by four inches of solid metal, but he kept his voice low anyway. “There’s been a change in management.”

“And what does that have to do with me?” Echo said, dropping her mangled straw.

“My contract’s been cut short.” Caius jingled a ring of skeleton keys at her through the bars. “As far as I’m concerned, that means you’re free to go.”

Echo pushed herself to her feet, knees creaking in protest.
Seventeen and already too old for this crap
. “Can I ask why?”

“I was hired by the Dragon Prince to bring you in. There’s a new Dragon Prince now. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of her methods.”

“Tanith?”

Caius looked mildly surprised. “How did you know?”

“I have these things I like to call eyes and ears.” Echo flexed her ankles, trying to get her circulation back in working order. “You know, she doesn’t exactly seem like the subtle type.”

“Tanith has been called many things over the years, but subtle was never one of them,” Caius said, keys dangling from his fingers.

“I ask again,” Echo said. She could almost taste her freedom. Ivy had gone still, watching their exchange closely. “What does this have to do with me?”

“This has everything to do with you.”

“An answer that’s not really an answer. Lovely. At this rate, we’ll be here all day.” Echo wrapped her hands around the bars of her cell door, peering at Caius. “But it’s cool. Take your time. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

“I’m not interested in playing games with you, Echo. You know far more about the firebird than you want me to believe. You knew more than my own scholars, and they’ve spent decades looking for even the smallest clue as to its whereabouts. I believe that you’re on its trail, and I need to know what you know. Now.”

Echo would sooner have dashed her own skull against the bars of her cell than sold out the Ala and the Avicen to some Drakharin. Not after what they’d done to her friends. She opened her mouth to tell him exactly that when he held up a hand, silencing her.

“The fate of both our peoples may depend on your next words, so consider them carefully.”

Ivy was very quiet in her cell, as if she were holding her breath, listening intently.

“Tell me why you want it,” Echo said. “Tell me why I should give a damn.”

Caius leaned in, studying her, his green eyes hard as jade. When he spoke, there was a quiet urgency to his voice. “I want to end this war. I’m tired of fighting. Tired of battle. Tired of bloodshed. But Tanith … she feasts on it. If the firebird can put a stop to all this, to the war that has devastated our people for centuries, then I would find it. I want peace, Echo. More than wealth, more than glory, more than my own life, I want peace.”

And just like that, Caius unlocked her cell, letting the door swing open with a loud squeal. “And unless I’m sorely
mistaken,” he said, tossing her the keys to Ivy’s cell and manacles, “I think you want that as well.”

Echo looked at Caius, at the dark hair brushing his forehead, at the slight crease between his brows, at the faint scar at the edge of his lip, almost imperceptible in the half-light of the dungeon.

Akrasia
, she thought.
The state of acting against one’s better judgment
. She had a feeling that the next three words out of her mouth were the most important words she would ever speak.

“Yes,” she said. “I do.”

Fetch my brother
.

Tanith’s words rang in Dorian’s ears as he stalked through the keep, flanked by the two Firedrakes she’d assigned to him. He sank his teeth into the tender flesh on the inside of his cheek to keep from screaming.
Fetch
. As if he were a dog.

Though it gnawed at him deeply, Tanith had been right about one thing. As captain of the royal guard, he had sworn fealty to the Dragon Prince. Unfortunately, that title now belonged to Tanith, and he was expected to follow her orders as faithfully as he had followed Caius’s. As if allegiance were a transferrable entity.

His first stop, Firedrakes in tow, had been Caius’s study, only to find the lifeless body of one of the guards under his command. Ribos had been a loyal soldier, steadfast and true. He’d had a love of ginger tea and lemon cakes and was as quick with a barbed joke as he was with a kind word. And
now he was dead, another sacrifice at the altar of Tanith’s ambition.

Fetch my brother
.

It had been her first order to Dorian, spoken with a taunt dancing in her sanguine eyes. He supposed she’d done it to remind him of his place. He was hers now, and she would not let him forget it. The Dragon Prince had demanded that he fetch Caius, and he would do just that.

Never let it be said
, Dorian thought,
that I am not a man of my word
.

Dorian brushed past the pair of Firedrakes guarding the dungeon’s door. He rounded the corner and skidded to an abrupt halt. Caius stood in the narrow pathway between the cells, with the Avicen girl and the human. And they were free.

“Dorian,” Caius said. “Nice of you to join us. I see you brought friends.”

“It’s funny.” Dorian drew his sword, keeping it at a low angle. The Firedrakes behind him followed suit. “Tanith sent me to find you to make sure you were on your best behavior. It’s almost like she didn’t trust you not to stir up trouble.”

“It’s funny,” Caius replied. “She had two of her lackeys follow you around. It’s almost like she didn’t trust you to do as you were told.”

Dorian couldn’t have fought the grin that tugged at his lips even if he wanted to. Caius returned the smile, and Dorian’s heart sputtered out a sickening little tune.

“Funny, that,” he said. Dorian spun, knocking one Firedrake’s sword from his hands with a single swift blow. The other dodged the attack, and her blade ripped through Dorian’s tunic, scraping at the arch of his hip bone. Dorian
brought the butt of his sword down on the guard’s helmet, and she crumpled in a pile of shining armor. Disarmed and unprepared. Not much of a fight. Tanith would have been so disappointed. From the corner of his eye, Dorian saw Caius unsheathe the knives at his back, running one through the neck of the Firedrake on his right, the other through the vulnerable opening where the plates of armor met at chest and shoulder.

It ended before it had truly begun. Caius absently kicked a Firedrake’s boot before stepping over the fallen body at his feet. “Tanith was right to doubt your loyalty.”

“You’re my friend, Caius.” Dorian bent down to tear a scrap of crimson wool from the cloak of a fallen Firedrake, wincing at a sharp pain in his abdomen. The Firedrake’s blade must have cut deeper than he’d thought. He wiped the blood from his sword with the scrap of cloth, taking a moment to appreciate the poetry of it all. He met Caius’s eyes, flinging the cloth to the side. “My loyalty was never in question.”

“Of course not.” Caius smiled. “I am eternally in your debt, but now I have to leave.”

“I’d guessed as much,” Dorian said. “Where are we going?”

“We?”

“Yes. We. As in
you
and
me
.” Dorian gestured at the two girls who’d kept a safe distance from the fight, but had curiously not chosen to flee.
Nowhere to go
, he supposed. “And them. For some reason, which I’m sure you’ll explain in due time.”

“Yes, of course,” said Caius, sparing a glance over his shoulder. Echo gave a faint little wave. Ivy was looking even paler beneath the soot and blood on her face. “But, Dorian,
you have to understand … if you come with me, you might never be able to return. What I’m about to do is nothing short of high treason.”

Dorian rolled his eye. “Caius, I just killed two of Tanith’s soldiers. I think it’s safe to say the treason boat has sailed.”

“You can tell them I did it,” Caius said. “No one would—”