Pen leans closer to me. “If they’re going to kill me,” she whispers, “I wish they’d be quicker about it.”
“Don’t say that.”
The prince makes a gesture to his sister like slicing a throat, and though Pen’s tactic has been to appear unfazed, this is more than I can stand.
“There is a machine,” I say, just as the tenth chime is finishing.
The duo looks at me, stunned.
“I’ve seen it, that’s true. I’ve ridden in it. I’ve been to the ground and back.”
The prince is the first to break his hopeful gaze. He narrows his eyes. “Impossible.”
“More than once,” I say. “Lots of us have gone.”
“Half a dozen trips, at least,” Pen says, playing along. “I can’t believe it’s gone on under your noses and you never suspected a thing. I’d have thought you’d be more clever than that.”
“We’re clever,” the prince snaps.
“Very,” the princess agrees. “I knew the whole while, didn’t I, Az? I’ve said it plenty of times.”
“You can’t be the children of the king and be stupid, you know,” the prince says.
“Clearly,” Pen mutters through gritted teeth.
The prince and princess turn their backs to us in tandem, begin speaking quietly to each other, glancing back at us more than once.
“Where is it, then?” the princess finally asks. “The machine.”
“That is the question,” I say, looking right into her eyes. “Isn’t it?”
“We don’t disclose our secrets to kidnappers,” Pen says.
The princess opens her mouth, but a voice echoes down the stairwell. “Celeste? Azure? You aren’t playing down there, are you? You know what your mother said.”
The prince looks to his sister, panicked. “Our instructor can’t know we’re down here,” he says. “She can’t find them.” He points at us.
“We’ll go out the other way,” she assures him. “We’ll make like we were outside.” She points to me as she’s backing out of the room. “This isn’t over, you. I’ll have my answers if I have to crack your head open and take them out myself.”
She’s still pointing when she closes the door.
“She has a way with words,” Pen says, now that we’re alone. “A bit stupid, though. Does she not realize secrets aren’t actual things sitting in our heads?”
But I’m not thinking about the princess now. I’m thinking about that voice that called down the stairwell.
“That was the specialist,” I say. “The woman the prince called their instructor—that was Ms. Harlan.”
“Are you sure?” Pen says. “You’re probably dehydrated. Maybe you’re imagining things.”
“No,” I say. “You don’t forget the voice of the woman who poisoned you.”
“Yesterday you were just a sweet schoolgirl,” Pen says. “Now everyone wants you dead. I’m a little jealous of your intrigue.”
“They want you dead, too,” I remind her.
“You think?” She beams.
I see where the twine has made her skin raw, and despite her verve I know she’s as miserable as I am, and as frightened. It’s selfish of me, but I’m glad I’m not alone.
“Why did we tell them there’s a machine?” she says.
“They won’t kill us if they want our secrets. I was hoping to buy us some time.”
After a pause, she says, “Morgan?”
“Yes?”
“What are we waiting for? We can’t stay at the mercy of those two. They’re insane.”
“Basil will come for me,” I say. “Maybe Judas, too. He was hiding when we were taken. He must have seen.”
“No,” she says. “We’re on our own.”
“He’ll come,” I say, forcing myself to believe it.
“He won’t know where to find us. Morgan, look at me. Nobody is going to come. We are on our own.”
I want to argue, but I know she’s right. I think I’ve always known. Basil will try, and maybe Judas will try. But they won’t know to find us in this strange dungeon and they won’t be able to reach us. We have to free ourselves. “Then what do we do?”
“I say we knock them out,” Pen says. “Push them, maybe. Or I could get behind one of them and use this twine to strangle them.”
There are many ways this could go wrong, but is it any more dangerous than waiting? With dread, I accept that her plan makes more sense than mine.
“Nothing that violent,” I say. “We can’t just lunge blindly at them. We have to think it out. For starters, we have to make sure they don’t have any syringes or blades on them.”
“The prince might,” she admits. “He seems the paranoid sort. Then again, the princess likes to be in control of situations. She probably still has your knife.”
She sees my crestfallen expression and hooks her arms over my shoulders and brings her forehead to mine. “Let’s make a promise,” she says. “To be brave and go for it. We can plan it as best we can, and if it goes horribly wrong, we keep trying until we’re free or they stab us. Maybe even after they stab us.”
“If we can keep moving, we move,” I say.
“And not leave each other behind,” she says.
“I promise.”
“I promise, too.”
And in hushed voices we begin planning our mutiny.
It will have to be when they come to check on us next, likely tonight, we decide. We’ll ambush them and try to buy a few seconds so we can lock them in while we make our escape.
The princess mentioned a back entrance so that their instructor wouldn’t see them sneak outside. We’ll look for that first, and if we can’t find it, we’ll hope the main floor of the clock tower is empty after dark. There may be patrolmen; we’ll have to risk it. My brother and Judas made it seem as though many of the patrolmen are secretly opposing the king; it’s too much to hope that we’ll encounter some of them and they’ll let us go.
Pen continues trying to saw through the twine that binds her wrists. But even when she finds a bit of protruding brick to work with, it does no good. “Definitely good stuff for strangling,” she says. “I would say I could lure the prince over to me by flirting, but it doesn’t seem that would work, does it? Given his preference.”
“We can’t kill them,” I say.
“What’s this from the girl who wanted to slit the king’s throat?” she says.
“I wasn’t thinking clearly then,” I say.
“And now the dehydration and lack of sleep have enlightened you?”
“No,” I say, and the firmness of my tone makes her stop sawing at the twine and look at me.
I hate the prince and princess—I hate the whole family more than I would have thought possible—but I don’t want to do to them what they’ve done to me. “I don’t want to be the reason anyone is dead, Pen, and I doubt you do, either.”
She stares at me a moment longer before looking away, mouthing words I don’t catch.
Then she says, “I make no promises,” but I know it’s her way of agreeing to my demand.
She goes back to working at the twine, trying to loosen the knots around my wrists now. But it’s no use. Maybe the prince and princess have never had a hostage before, but they tie knots with precision, and the more we struggle, the tighter the restraints become. Pen finally gives up when I begin to bleed, and instead she helps me draw my knees to my chest, making me small enough to loop my arms under me until my hands are in my lap. For the first time I see the damage to my skin, swollen and red and oozing. Probably infected. Basil would be angry to see what they’ve done to me. Angry like when he found out about Ms. Harlan prodding into my head.
He’s so careful with me, always.
When I return to him, he’ll pull me into his arms. Sweep me up. I’ll close my eyes.
I feel his chest against mine. Feel his breath on my neck. My skin swells with little bumps. And then the memory of him is gone. I said that I wouldn’t kill them, but I know that I would. To return to him, I would.
