Break the Chains

Chapter Twenty-Two

Coss threw her a stink eye through the shadow of the alcove in which they hid, pressed up hard against the cold stone as they waited for footsteps to dwindle down the hall.

“Will you please take that stupid face off?” he whispered.

Pelkaia grinned, twisting up the borrowed visage of the watcher who had arrested them. “What? Don’t you want to kiss me like this?” She leaned forward, smacking the borrowed lips.

He hid a laugh behind his hand and gave her a shove. “Ugh. Stop it. We’re trying to be quiet. Although,” his voice dropped low, “it is good to see you laugh again.”

She brushed him off, setting aside the temporary intimacy. Adrenaline thrummed through her veins, making her loose and silly. The mania that seized her whenever she spilt blood burgeoned within her chest, pushing her to do more. To take risks. She needed to focus, find her core of control. It wouldn’t be long until the guard she’d tricked into releasing her by wearing his colleague’s face was discovered, and their empty cells shortly after that.

Curse Petrastad for building everything so tall. If they were in any other station house in any other Scorched city, they could have climbed out of a window by now. Or at the very least discovered the blasted front door. The footsteps that had urged them to hide petered off into the distance, and her shoulders slumped with relief. Even with her bone-braces, her body ached if she forced it to hold one position for too long.

“Which way?” Coss asked, sticking his head back out into the hall. She had no idea – it all looked the same to her, endless wood paneling and naked stone – but she was his captain. He relied on her to guide them to freedom.

And once free, they’d pummel Honding for his failures together. The very thought gave her cheer. Pelkaia tore off down the western arm of the hall, away from the footsteps, and hoped she had picked true.

“Slow down,” Coss said. He pressed a hand against the back of her arm. “Running will just draw attention. The ship will be there when we get back.”

He gave her his sweet, lopsided smile. She slowed. “Don’t count on it. The longer we leave Detan without supervision, the more likely we are to discover everything’s gone to the pits while we were away. That man…” She clenched her fists and paused, peering left and right down a forked hallway. More wood paneling, more doors marked with numbers that might as well have been in an alien language. No staircase. Except… There was a little well of darkness to the left where the lantern light could not quite penetrate all the way to the floor. Promising.

“The very fact he went off-script at the vault indicates he’s up to something.”

“It was my fault the guardsmen grew suspicious of us,” Coss insisted. “You can’t blame him for that. And, well, I didn’t mean to start a fight, but…”

She bit her lip to keep from reminding him that he was not yet as practiced at violence as she – that he’d been so wound up and itching to brawl that the guard couldn’t help but notice and take an interest in them. He’d learn, and grow comfortable with it, or he wouldn’t and she’d leave him behind next time. But that wasn’t an argument she was willing to have now, with the watchers of Petrastad breathing down their necks.

“Hurry, we must reach the ship before Detan does.”

Coss scoffed. “You don’t really think he could win the Mirror away from the crew in your absence? Jeffin wouldn’t let him so much as touch the deck.”

They reached the spot of darkness and found a spiral set of hard, stone stairs descending into the black. Dust coated the steps, and unlit lanterns hung from iron hooks. This was access for cleaning staff, or goods transport. Not the warm, rug-run flight of stairs she and Coss had been escorted up. The servants were bound to have easier access to the outdoors, and set away from prying eyes at that. It felt good to have solid, raw stone beneath her feet again, even if the hardness of the stone jarred her aging joints.

“I pray you’re right,” she said as she doubled back to snatch a lit lantern from the hallway and plunged down the first flight of steps. It was colder in the stairwell. They must be close to the edge of the building now, away from the insulated and fire-warmed interior. “Though I find myself wishing you had thrown him off that jetty in Cracked Thorn.”

Halfway down the next level, bells pealed out the alarm. The deep, throaty vibrations reached through the hard stone to vibrate her tired bones. She glanced back, up the steps, and saw Coss’s eyes wide and white-rimmed in the faint light of her lantern. The thunder of the bell echoed, hammering her ears.

“Run,” Coss mouthed.

Pelkaia took off at a sprint, Coss’s boots thudding behind her in rhythm with the bells, the lantern swinging crazily in her hand, throwing shadows in all directions.

How they’d discovered their absence so quickly, she could not figure out. The watcher who’d slammed the door on them had told her they’d missed the dinner hour, and handed them each a crumpled roll and jug of stale water to last until the morning meal. She’d thought they’d have time – maybe even all night – to find their way out of this maze of a tower.

Pelkaia’s foot hit a floor landing, and the door beside her swung open. A maid, clutching a basket of laundry to her belly, screamed and dropped her burden. Linens twin to those from her cell spilled across the landing, tangling the maid’s feet, though these smelled considerably fresher than the sheets Pelkaia had been stuck with.

“Mallie!” a voice called from behind the maid. “Are you all right?”

Mallie opened her mouth to scream again, but Pelkaia grabbed the woman’s arm and yanked her onto the stair landing. Her screech became a breathless squeak as Pelkaia whirled her around and grabbed her tight.

“Don’t scream,” Coss hissed, racing forward to shut the door halfway so that they could not be seen from the hall behind it. “Call to your friend, tell her you’re well and no harm will befall you.”

Pelkaia watched the young woman’s gaze flick side to side, watched her lick her lips as she considered her options. A brave heart, this one. Pelkaia jabbed two knuckles into her back, above her kidney. She had no weapon, but the maid didn’t know that.

“I’m fine!” Mallie called, voice cracking. “Saw a rat!”

“Ugh!” Footsteps stomped away, difficult to hear over the clamor of the alarm bells. Coss crept forward after a pause, peered around the door, then dragged the laundry onto the stair’s landing and shut the door the rest of the way.

“Speak softly,” Pelkaia whispered to the maid. “And tell us the way out of this nightmarish place.”

“Y-you must go down to the third level, miss. That’s the closest. Then down the hall, all the way. There’ll be a door, it opens up to a walkway that crosses to the washers’ house. Can you let me go now, please? I won’t tell anyone, I swear it.”

“Sorry, Mallie. You’re coming with us as far as the washers’ house. If you don’t make a peep, you’ll be fine. Understand?”

She trembled, but nodded, not so much as murmuring agreement. Quick learner. Dragging Mallie along with them slowed them, and though Pelkaia could see the frustration writ clear in Coss’s anxious steps she was soothed by the maid’s presence. They knew where they were going. No amount of fleeing at speed could have outpaced that knowledge.

Down one level. Two. Three. Sweat beaded on her brow, dripped into her eyes and blurred her vision with her own stinging salt. Splitting her concentration between holding the selium against her face, escorting the maid, and being mindful of her steps was taking its toll. Her slopped-together mask must look grotesque, but she was loathe to give up the anonymity it offered her.

“I’ll take her,” Coss said, reaching out to gather the maid in his thicker arm.

The maid squirmed, clearly irritated at being shoved around so. Her pinched gaze fell upon Pelkaia’s hands. Saw the lack of weapon in them. Her eyes widened, her lips pressed together in anger. Her head reared back, smacking Coss in the nose. Pelkaia lunged forward, but the maid twisted away.

“He-elp!” she screamed, cupping one hand around her mouth while she hiked her skirts with the other and bolted swift as a monsoon wind down the steps. Her first cry was drowned out by the great clash of the alarm bells, but Pelkaia could see her gather her breath for another roar.

“By the pits,” Coss growled, covering his nose with one hand. A thin, bloody trickle rolled over his lips.

“Help!” Mallie screeched high enough to make Pelkaia cringe. The maid was already a great many flights below them, her voice echoing up through the shaft of spiraling stone steps.

“Forget her,” Pelkaia said as she grabbed Coss’s arm and urged him forward. “We can’t be far, and we must be quick.”

He grunted, smeared the blood from his nose across the back of his wrist, and followed her at a sprint down the steps. Pelkaia leaned forward into her gait, urging her tired body to fly down the stones.

“Here!” Coss grabbed her arm, thick fingers digging into her flesh as she jerked to a halt. Not bothering to explain, he lunged for the next door and flung it open – Pelkaia caught only a brief glimpse of the number three carved into the old wood – and dragged her through.

The hallway was narrow, the runner-rug thin and the air redolent with warm soap smells. A single door stood at the end of it, painted a sunny yellow. Waiting.

They surged forward. Pelkaia’s breath burned over her lips, down her throat, doing little to ease the ache in her chest. Coss flung the door open and they barreled through. The walkway was narrow, but sturdy. It lead to a dark building, to a twin yellow door. Despite the angry lash of the sea winds, the laundry building radiated the faint scent of grit soap and lilacs. Shouts sounded behind them, distant, but growing near.

Pelkaia stumbled, boot catching on a board, and twisted just in time to land hard on her side instead of pitching over the three-story drop to the road below. She gasped as the jar of the fall shuddered through her, enhancing the ache of her already tired body. Her bone-braces could do little against a fall at full speed. Coss’s hands were already upon her, lifting, searching for breaks.

As she staggered to her feet she looked back, glancing at the sky instinctively. Her heart missed a beat.

“Pell, what is it?” Concern and fear mingled on his dirt-smudged face. He followed her eye-line, saw the familiar – if obscured – shape of their ship docked against the watchtower.

“What the…” He rubbed his cheeks as if he could massage away the sight.

Pelkaia let out a strangled laugh. “That’s what I get, working with Honding. He’s here. That daft-headed man came for us. Come on. Let’s go get ourselves arrested again.”

She wiped the sweat from her face with the bottom of her shirt, then rearranged her mask to the one she had worn when they had been arrested. Through all their fleeing, she had lost a few bits of the mask. It lay thin and patchy against her skin. Fine for fooling an overworked watcher, but no good for close scrutiny.

“Coss, I hate to ask, but…”

He took one look at her face and grimaced. “I see the problem. Give me a moment.”

Steadying himself with the handrail, he stared straight at a piece of empty air between them. Her skin tingled as he accessed his sel-sense, focused on the very rawest edge of his sensitivity. While he could see the minute particles of sel drifting in the air at all times, he could also, when matters were desperate, reach out and wrench some of those bits and pieces together – force them to gel into something large enough for another, less fine-tuned, sensitive to use.

He grunted. A little pearl shimmered between them and began to rise. Pelkaia snapped out her senses and captured the new glob of sel, adding it to the thin parts of her mask, trying to ignore the paleness in Coss’s cheeks, the slight shiver in the muscles of his arms.

“How is it?”

Coss gave her a tight nod, too tired to waste breath on speech. It would do. He brushed the hair from her forehead, securing it behind her ear, and she ignored the warmth of his touch as she turned back to the station-house. She could not afford to be distracted. Not when Detan Honding waited for her on the other side of that garish, yellow door.