Before She Ignites (Fallen Isles Trilogy #1)(97)

“Leave it there if you really want him to live. It’s plugging the flow of blood right now. If you remove it, he’ll bleed out, and I get the feeling you don’t want to be a murderer.”

“That wasn’t what I was doing.” A lie. She probably knew it. Instead, I removed the ring of keys from his belt, careful to avoid touching him. I wasn’t proud—or even sure—of what I’d done, and I didn’t want to risk doing it again. Not when he was already down.

I slipped the key ring into the bag of noorestones and retreated from Altan’s unconscious form. How long would he stay out? Aaru hadn’t been unconscious for too long, but he’d had a longer, sustained burn. Altan—that had been all at once.

It was a wonder he was still alive.

I padded toward the door, listening for clatters and clanks in the bag. Nothing. The nineteen noorestones and the keys were packed tightly enough they wouldn’t move, as long as I kept the makeshift bag pinned against my ribs.

“How do you do it?” Tirta asked. “You hate him. Your life would be better if he were gone forever. But you won’t take action to make it happen.”

“I won’t compromise my humanity for my comfort. I won’t become him to be rid of him.” I touched the doorknob, cool metal under my fingertips. “I thought you understood that.”

Her eyes, once sweet and familiar, now held a secret darkness. “I understand survival. You should, too.”

I didn’t want to understand the world the way she did. Not anymore.

Tirta pushed past me and opened the door. “Come on.” She slipped into the hall, grip tight on the baton.

I stepped out of the interrogation room and shut the door after me, leaving Altan alone. In the dark. Bleeding.

Still, he had no idea how lucky he was that I was not Tirta.

I stepped back from the door. One. Two.

“Are you coming?” Tirta tapped the baton on her thigh. “There aren’t usually many guards in this area, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be spotted.”

I was still staring at the door, wondering how this act measured up to all of his.

I’d stabbed him. I could still feel the resistance and pop and give of his skin.

“Don’t look so upset.” Tirta touched my good arm, almost the girl I knew again. Her tone was gentle and her expression soft, but now that I knew to look for it, I could see that this was just a mask. This wasn’t the real Tirta. “He’d have done worse to you,” she went on. “Anyway, don’t you want to get out of here? Feeling bad for him isn’t going to get you free.”

She was right. As much of a stranger as she was now, she was right. Three, four, five. I moved away from the door. It got easier with every step, like a fraying tether.

Six. Seven. The tether snapped. “I have to save the others. They’re still in the first level.”

She shook her head, lengthening her stride. “I barely escaped as it was.”

Now that she brought it up, how did she escape her guards? As a denizen of the third level, she had more freedoms than the rest of us, but she’d come charging into the interrogation room . . . to save me? “How did you know I was in there?”

“I heard warriors talking about how hard Altan was working to get information out of you. They were coming from the first level.”

That seemed really lucky, but before I could question it, she turned her glare on me.

“You really won’t leave without your friends?”

“I had a chance to escape while I was on Bopha,” I said. “But I returned to the Pit for you.”

Her frown softened. “All right. We’ll get them.”

“Take me to the Hall of Drakon Warriors first. We have to get something.”

“What?” She slowed and checked down an intersecting hallway before we turned.

“Dragon reins.” The copper rods the guards had used earlier were meant to direct dragons, like reins for a horse. The sanctuary staff used them to guide hurt or sick dragons.

“Why do you need dragon reins?”

“Because there’s a Drakontos ignitus in the first level, and if the guards you heard were coming from the first level, they were probably the ones who brought Kelsine. Did they have reins with them?”

“I think so.”

“What about a dragon?”

“Definitely not.”

“Then the dragon is still in there and we need something to control her with. They might have calm-whistles, too, but it’s hard to say if warriors ever want their dragons to actually be calm.”

Her eyes widened. “There’s something wrong with you, Mira. Normal people don’t decide they can save their friends from a dragon.”

“Maybe there’s something right with me.” Surely she could understand that. “After all, you came to save me. Why?”

She motioned me around another corner, keeping our pace quick. “Because it’s my job to look after you.”

A sense of unease struck deep inside me. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not a prisoner, Mira. At least, not in the same sense as the rest of the inmates.” She walked faster and faster. “I did what I did to save my life, and I truly do care what happens to you. But I’m not like the others.”

“I don’t understand. If you’re not a prisoner—”