Belladonna

“How will we ever find Luca?” Siena asked. For the first time, she sounded afraid.

Cass didn’t answer. She held her lantern up to the tiny barred window in the first door. A man lay on a raised stone platform, naked except for a tattered pair of breeches. Bruises and bite marks covered his torso.

The man sat up when he saw the lantern’s light. “The water is coming,” he said, leering at her. “Afterward, the vermin.”

Cass lowered the lantern quickly. The water was only up to her ankles. Plenty of time. Siena gripped her elbow and piloted her forward. In the next cell, a man squatted over a silver bucket. Cass quickly passed on. Next—a man slept on the raised platform. The fourth cell appeared to be empty.

But just as she turned away, a figure launched itself at the door. “Angels,” the voice rasped. “Have you come to free me?”

Cass backed up quickly, pulling Siena with her. But the man began to bang on the door of his cell. “Angels,” he cried out. “They’ve come to free us all!”

“Shh,” she hissed. But the man continued to bang on his door, and several other voices picked up the chant: “Angels!” They screeched, clawing at their doors. “Angels of mercy!”

Just then, Cass saw light from around the next corner. A guard shouted, “Settle down, all of you!”

Quickly, she extinguished her lantern and retreated with Siena into a recessed portion of the corridor. The two girls stood with their backs against the damp wall. Boots sloshed through the water, drawing closer. Cass’s heart beat three times for each footstep. She held her breath, terrified the guard might actually be able to hear her blood racing through her body.

“What are you going on about?” The guard knocked harshly on the doors he passed; abruptly, the prisoners fell silent. Only one of them spoke up—the man who had given the alarm.

“Angels,” he hissed. “They’ve come to set us free.”

The guard laughed and hawked a bit of phlegm into the swirling water.

“The only thing coming to set you free will be Death himself. Go back to sleep. Don’t make me get my boots wet again or you’ll pay for it tomorrow.”

Cass risked poking her head around the corner, and saw the guard’s lantern heading away from them. She counted to ten. Then, ducking low, she and Siena crept back down the corridor. It was getting harder to move. The water was almost at her knees.

At the next corner, Cass saw that the guard had his own elevated platform, situated against the far wall of the cellblock. As Cass watched, he stepped up out of the murk, set down his lantern, and hung a set of keys on a hook protruding from the stone wall. Dropping to a squat on the platform, the guard pulled a flask from his pocket and took a long drink.

Cass ducked back out of view.

The keys were so close. But the guard was wearing chain mail, something Cass should have considered. Their daggers would be useless—even as a threat—against a man in armor, unless they could get close enough to slash his throat. Her insides curled into knots at the thought. “I saw the keys,” Cass whispered to Siena. “But first we have to find Luca.”

Siena nodded. She opened her mouth to speak, then froze.

“Cass?” The word came from behind her.

She spun around. The cell was dark, quiet. A roman numeral fifteen was painted upside down over the door. Had someone just said her name? Or had she imagined it?

A shadow stirred from inside the cell. There was a liquid sound in the dark, water being disturbed.

A man’s face appeared at the tiny grate. Siena covered her mouth with one hand. Cass swallowed back a gasp. He had a thick beard covering his cheeks and chin, but his brown eyes shined golden in the darkness.

It was Luca.

“Am I—am I seeing things?” Luca’s voice was dry, cracked. “Is that you, Cass?” His eyes were wide and staring, as though he had woken in the middle of a dream.

Cass felt like weeping. He was here. She had found him. She wanted to throw herself through the stone and press her face to his chest. Instead, she leaned close to the grate. “We’re going to get you out of here,” she mouthed.

Luca rubbed his eyes, like he still thought Cass was just a dream. He shook his head. “Impossible,” he whispered.

Cass reached for his face, barely managing to squeeze her fingers through the grate and touch his cheek. “I’ll be back. I promise.”

Reluctantly, she turned away from Luca, nearly colliding with Siena. Ducking down, Cass swept her hands back and forth in the rising water, fighting back a surge of nausea as unfamiliar slippery objects swirled through her fingers. She refused to think about what they might be. She traced a sharp crack in the dungeon floor, digging her fingertips beneath the broken stone until one of the pieces came loose. It was about the size of her hand, but much heavier. Siena mimicked Cass, and soon came up with her own jagged piece of rock.

The two girls circled away from the guard, turning two sharp corners until they had returned to the bottom of the service stairwell. They needed those keys, but there was no way to sneak up on him while he was awake. If they were lucky, he would eventually fall asleep.

Cass and Siena huddled in the darkness of the stairs, creeping to the edge of the cellblock occasionally to peek around the corner at the guard. He took swigs of his flask and toyed with the hilt of his sword. At one point Cass thought she heard him singing to himself. The fetid water slowly rose up to her waist, soaking her skirts, making it feel as though her pockets were filled with lead.

She chanced another glimpse around the corner. Black liquid lapped at the edges of the guard’s platform. He had slumped against the wall, his chin resting on his chest.

Now was their chance.

Cass directed Siena back to Luca’s cell. She had to be ready to pull open the dead bolts as soon as Cass had the keys in her possession.

Straightening up, Cass moved carefully through the thick, foul-smelling liquid. It sucked at her stockings as she advanced. Her shoes were bricks. Heavy. So heavy. Her skirts swirled around her in the mire. The blackness was a cloth bag—no, a coffin—that threatened to smother her. She clutched the slab of broken rock so tightly that she feared it might crumble to pieces before she made it down the corridor.

Another heavy step. And then another. She approached the sleeping guard. The prisoners were all quiet. Cass prayed for stealth, for invisibility. If one of them called out, she was a dead woman. Another step. Her whole body trembled. But there was no turning back.

Slowly, she maneuvered herself onto the raised platform. She hovered over the guard, trembling. He snored lightly, expelling the smell of liquor. Cass could see the stubble of beard. The network of wrinkles around his eyes. She could almost see the pulsing of blood in the thick vessels of his throat. Her own blood roared in her ears. She turned her head toward the darkness. Where was Siena? Was she ready? When Siena loosened the dead bolts, the guard would wake up. Unless . . .

Cass considered the heavy rock cupped in her hand and then thought about the dagger in her pocket. She looked back at the guard, visualizing the pulsing in his neck. She imagined sticking the blade through his throat, spilling his blood down the platform into the murky water. He was sleeping so soundly. She could do it.

Only she couldn’t do it.

She didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

The keys dangled just above the guard’s head. Carefully, Cass rose to her feet. She extended her arm, for once grateful that she was taller than most every girl she knew. Luca’s freedom was at the tips of her fingers. She could save him, maybe, as long as the keys didn’t clank together.

But they would. She knew they would. And then the guard would wake.

Keeping one hand curled around the wet piece of stone, Cass slowly reached for the keys.

twenty-eight