'No,' she replied, 'but silence anyway.'
She vanished, but returned an instant later. Seeming to glide through the shadows, she clutched his arm, making him start, even though he had been watching for her.
'Is… is it safe?' His voice was meek.
'Safer than staying there,' Twilight said. 'You'd best stay by my side, boy.' Her eyes narrowed. 'Don't worry-I won't pounce on you any time soon.'
'Pounce on me?'
She winked. 'Keep up!'
Then she was gone.
Liet fumbled after her, groping his way into the darkness. 'Wait!'
Twilight abandoned the youth in the dank cell and returned to where she'd left the gigantic key ring in front of the door opposite her own. She knelt beside it and tested the twenty-second of the thirty or so keys. The cell was completely silent, though a small form huddled on the pallet across from her, watching her activities keenly.
After a time, a gasp came from behind her, and Twilight glanced back. Liet was standing there, hand on his chest. ' 'Tis merely me.' Twilight tried another key. It fit, but wouldn't turn. 'Though I'm never 'merely,' as you shall discover.'
'I'll take your word.' He scurried to her side and knelt down. 'Wh-where…?'
'Asleep at the end of the hall,' Twilight said. When Liet sucked in a breath, she rolled her eyes. 'Easy-I've secured him.'
'Secured him?'
'That's what I said.' She tried the twenty-fourth key. No good. It might have been faster to pick this lock. 'At least a candle's life, I think, before he comes after us.'
'Then what?'
'I imagine we'd do well to escape by then, eh?' The padlock clicked open finally, and the door shivered. She wondered why this prisoner was kept in silence.
Then a small form struck her in a flying tackle. 'Oh, thank-you-thank-you-thank-you!' the prisoner said in a girlish voice. She squeezed Twilight as though to choke the air from her lungs. 'Oh gods, it was dreadful! Dreadful! But now I'm free! Thank you, most divine mistress! Oh, thank Yondalla for you!'
'Well… met,' Twilight managed, her words stifled. 'I'm… Twilight…'
'Well met!' cried the prisoner, ignoring Liet entirely. 'I'm Billfora Brightbrows, but my friends call me Slip, and you can, too, as it pleases you, Mistress Twilight!'
Liet chuckled-for which Twilight vowed to knee him again.
'Yes… just…' she choked. 'Get… off.'
Slip was off her with a bound, and blessed-albeit stagnant and putrid-air returned. 'Yes, Mistress!' she said. 'Thank the Mother! Thank all her daughters! They kept me in that silence for so long, but you freed me! Oh, what a great, joyous day!' She looked around. 'Where are we?'
'That's Liet,' Twilight said, pointing at the youth hesitantly, but the little woman was gazing all around, completely oblivious, her mouth running at fifty leagues a candle. Now Twilight understood why she'd been given the silent treatment.
'You're a halfling?' Liet asked.
'Halfling?' Slip asked without looking. 'Half-human? Half-elf? Dwarf? Troll?'
'Ah,' Liet said. 'You know… like a… halfling. The wee folk.'
'Oh.' Slip finally looked at him, and blinked. She stared at him for a long time, as though struggling to recognize him-or his words. She shrugged. 'Well, yes.'
Now it was Twilight's turn to grin. 'Do you know anything about picking locks?'
'Yes, yes!' Slip laughed. 'Back in Crimel, I was the best lock-picker of the whole lock-picking bunch. We had contests! Though…' She looked at the tattered robe she wore. 'Usually I had my tools.'
'I see.' Twilight stuck her head in the cell and all sound vanished. She leaned into another universe, where only the spaces between objects existed. Unnerving.
She straightened and sound returned. 'Anyone else in there?'
'Nope!' Slip said. 'Just me!'
'Very well,' Twilight said. 'Come with us. We're organizing an escape. But quietly-our guard may be a light sleeper.'
'Yes, Mistress!' Slip shouted. When the elf gave her an icy look, she lowered her voice. 'Yes, Mistress. Whatever you command, I obey. My life and body are yours.'
Liet reddened and Twilight rolled her eyes. What a child. 'Good.'
She handed Slip the key ring. 'Open the other cells and gather all the prisoners. That'-she pointed down the main corridor, away from Tlork's chamber, toward a wide room that might once have been a guard station-'will do quite well.'
The halfling gave her the widest of grins and scampered off.
'Just like that?' Liet blinked. 'Why trust her?'
Twilight shrugged. 'Why not trust her?' she asked. 'After all, I own her life and body, as you noted in such manly fashion.'
'N-nay.' Liet's face went red. 'I didn't-I meant, why'd you give her the keys?'
Twilight plucked up her shard of iron. 'The Hells I'm going through that again.'
In wonder, Liet watched the black-haired elf work.
Eyes closed, she knelt before a heavy lock, fingers twisting and prying with the shard of iron. Every so often, she laid her fingers gently upon the lock's surface and paused. Then she would press her ear against the door, peering up at the lock from below.
He realized he hadn't looked at the elf closely, up until this moment. It was not necessarily a beautiful face, but a certain edge caught his mind as he looked upon her and her image bounced back and forth in his mind, unwilling to leave. She had skin like alabaster and features delicate as porcelain, and her hair seemed so black as to be almost blue. He found that he couldn't identify the color of her eyes-gray, blue, green… it depended upon the light.
She appeared calm-peaceful. If Liet hadn't breathed the stagnant air, felt the freezing stone under his feet, and heard the great snores filtering down the corridor, he would have forgotten where he was entirely. 'Ah, Twilight? I-'
'Silence, please,' she said.
'But you let that Slip talk as much as she wanted-about nothing.'
'That was Slip.' Twilight adjusted the iron, wedging it against something unseen in the lock. 'You can be silent.'
'But why?'
'Three reasons,' Twilight said. 'One, so you don't wake up the troll. Two, because this isn't a silent cell, like Slip's was.' She focused on the lock.
After a pause, Liet coughed nervously. 'And the third?'
'Because I hate you,' she said brightly.
The lock clicked open. Twilight shifted and stood without using her arms, then put her hand to the oddly curved handle. She hesitated.
'On second thought,' she said. 'You do it.'
'Me?' Liet put his hand on it without thought, brushing hers. 'Why?' he asked.
Twilight merely smiled, stepped behind him, and allowed him to open the door.
An upright palm emerged and struck him full in the chin. He staggered, and his attacker followed, dashing him to the ground. A yellow knee settled on his throat, and green eyes with golden spots burned down at him. Liet
