beneath a pillow. Or a rolling pin. At the moment, they were too busy staring at Basilard and Yara who had burst across the room to a window. Yara’s frustrated grunts and pulling motions suggested the wrought iron vines and leaves snaking across the panes were more than decorations.
Bangs sounded at the door.
“How do you unlock this slagging thing?” Yara thumped a fist against the window, sounding like a woman with her patience balanced on the edge of a precipice. She mustn’t have expected quite so much adventure when Amaranthe had recruited her to join them in Forkingrust.
“Easy, Yara, we’ll get out, and we’ll do it in time to help… people.” Maldynado glanced at the pair on the bed. The woman had yanked the sheet over her chest, and the man was eyeing a sword belt dangling on a chair near Basilard.
Yara glowered over her shoulder at Maldynado. “How can you be optimistic? Your plan has been a disaster.”
The thumps at the door intensified.
“That’s true,” Maldynado said. “When I imagined spending the night on Rabbit Island with my fiancee-” he winked at her, drawing a fresh lip curl, “-I was picturing us in something similar to that position.”
“You were?” Yara’s lip curl vanished, replaced by a gawk.
“Naturally,” Maldynado said, surprised by her surprise.
Focus, Basilard signed. We must open the window or find another way out.
A boom roared in the hallway. The door shuddered, though the thumps that followed didn’t hurl it open. Someone had bad aim, or the lock was stronger than it looked.
Maldynado stepped further into the room, wondering if there might be a secret passage-this was a castle after all. The pair in the bed were probably only guests, but maybe they’d know.
Maldynado smiled, pretended to remove a hat and press it to his chest, and bowed deeply toward the woman. “Pardon our intrusion, but are there any other exits from this room?”
The woman pointed toward a tapestry featuring a pair of randy elk. “There’s a-”
“Ssh, don’t help them.” Her partner covered her mouth with his hand and glanced toward his weapons belt again. “Who are you people?”
“Innocent guests who couldn’t quite cover the bill.” Maldynado jogged to the tapestry and lifted the edge, revealing a door. Excellent. “The prices are a little higher than listed in the brochure.”
Maldynado unlatched the door and waved for his comrades to join him. A dark, narrow stairwell led upward to another door. The last words he heard, as he headed up, came from the man. “Brochure? There’s no brochure for this place, is there? I thought it was exclusive.”
Someone shut the door, pitching the stairway into blackness. Maldynado fumbled his way to the top.
“That door better not be locked too,” Yara said.
“If it is, it’s not my fault,” Maldynado said. “You chose this room.”
“ You chose this situation. Besides, someone had to get us off that landing. You were seconds away from being pummeled to death by flying rolling pins.”
Maldynado groaned as he groped for a latch. Why’d she have to witness all his embarrassing moments? At least the door was unlocked. Freedom at last. He opened the door to the crisp, cold air of late autumn-and a very small, round tower top that on one side overlooked the courtyard, on the other the castle wall and the cliff on the back side of the island. Basilard and Yara joined him, crowding the tiny space. There wouldn’t be anywhere to hide if someone started firing at them from the looming towers at the castle corners.
“If the brochure promised this room came with a balcony, those folks better ask for their money back. You’d be hard-pressed to fit a single lounge chair up here.” Maldynado searched for a ladder or way off. There wasn’t one. The three-story drop on the wall side led straight into the moat. Or, if one were terribly athletic and could leap past enough rocks, to the river, some seventy or eighty feet below.
“I see I can count on you to think of the important things in dire situations,” Yara said.
Basilard pointed at the head of the island. From the elevated perch, the docks and the steamboat were visible. The dinghy they’d arrived on was gone, and there was no sign of Books, Akstyr, or the emperor. The steamboat was belching smoke out of its stack and maneuvering away from the docks, the giant rear paddle turning slowly. In a minute or two, the Glacial Empress would be heading downriver at full speed.
“We going after that boat?” Maldynado asked. “Or staying here to look for the emperor?”
“Neither if we get shot.” Yara pointed to the courtyard at the same time as someone yelled, “Up there!”
“Fire!” came another cry.
Basilard dropped to a crouch. Maldynado, having already been hit by projectiles that night, took it further and flattened himself to his belly. It was perhaps a bit rude to take up so much of the limited floor space, for Yara tripped over him when she tried to crouch herself. Maldynado caught her as she fell, using his body to keep her from slamming into the unyielding stones.
“So,” he said, “we end up entangled after all.”
Yara was too busy elbowing him for Maldynado to savor the moment. She climbed past him to peer over the edge on the moat side. Basilard hunkered there too.
The women must have fled to the boat, he signed. The emperor wanted to follow them. If he and the others avoided capture, they will be there.
“We’ll never climb down and reach the docks in time.” Maldynado eyed the rocks and the moat. Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought he spotted a pair of crimson eyes floating by below.
If we jump, we might be able to swim around the island fast enough to catch up. They’re still maneuvering out of the docks.
“What are we discussing?” Yara asked.
“The plan.”
“Which is?”
Basilard made a jumping motion and pointed at the river.
“ Jump? ” Yara stared at Basilard and then at the meters of moat and rock between the edge of their perch and the start of the water. And the depth of the drop, too, perhaps. “Did someone kick your ore cart over?”
“If the emperor is alive, he’ll likely be on that boat,” Maldynado said. “We can’t abandon him.” Not if there was any chance Sicarius would learn about it anyway.
Basilard nodded firmly. Doubt filled Yara’s eyes as she studied the drop.
“If you don’t think you can make it,” Maldynado said, pushing thoughts of Sicarius’s threats out of his head, “I’ll stay here with you and fight.”
“I didn’t say I couldn’t make it.”
A steam whistle blew, its pitch low and eerie as it floated up to the castle. They had to decide quickly if they hoped to catch the boat, but Maldynado didn’t want to say anything else that might cause Yara to put pride ahead of wisdom. He wasn’t entirely sure he could make that leap without landing on the rocks.
Yara cursed, not a choice succinct word or phrase, but an entire stream that impressed him for its ecumenical vulgarity. She hiked up her dress, backed up, and took a running leap, her bare feet launching her from the low wall around the balcony. Maldynado gawked as she arced out over the moat and the rocky drop beyond it. He held his breath, his hands clenched into fists. If she didn’t make it…
Yara splashed into the river with a few feet to spare. Maldynado waited for her head to pop up, but it didn’t. What if she’d reached the goal only to plunge into water too shallow?
Basilard slapped his arm and pointed. They had to go as well. Maldynado nodded, though he couldn’t tear his gaze from the spot where Yara had gone in.
On top of the nearest tower, a rifle cracked. The bullet skipped off the stones at Maldynado’s feet.
Basilard backed up for a running start and leaped. Knowing he’d be shot if he delayed further, Maldynado readied himself to do the same. He backed up to the far edge and bent his knees as if he were lining up for the start of a race at the Imperial Games.
His careful preparation was ruined when the door to the balcony flew open so hard it slammed against the wall. Guards surged out of the stairwell and onto the roof, their hands stretching toward him.
Maldynado smacked them away and sprinted for the edge. He jumped onto the low wall and pushed off with all of his strength.
Cold wind whipped hair into his eyes and railed at his clothing. Blood surged to his muscles, and Maldynado
