Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(107)
I want to hit her. Scream at her until I’m blue in the face. Punch the wall because it won’t hit me back but it’ll still hurt. I want to tell her that I wish it had been me instead of Dez, too, but just then, footsteps echo down the corridor. In this end of the dungeon, the prisoners are not visited and somehow, I’ve already been here twice in my lifetime.
Just like that, we stop fighting with each other and focus on waiting for the guard to come to the door. We revert to our old unit hand signals because we still have to survive.
Margo presses her finger to her lips and points to the far wall, where I move so we cover the most space. If the guard is alone, we can take him. I want to say that we’ve been in worse situations, but this is the dungeons of the palace. It’s the second-worst place to find yourself. The first is Soledad prison.
The steps drum closer, and through the small rectangular opening on the door, we can make out a hooded figure. I press myself against the wall waiting for the tumbling gears of the cylinder lock that never come. Instead, the rectangular latch on the door swings open and a bundle is pushed through. It hits the floor and the latch is pulled shut, locked, and the cloaked figure moves away down the corridor. I race to the door and grab the bars. There’s only one person I can think of who might try to help me.
“Leo?” I call out. The footsteps stop for a moment. I want to say his name once more, but then he keeps going.
“What is it?” Margo asks, touching her foot to the cloth bundle.
I undo the tie and open it up. I’ve heard of weapons put together by the royal alchemists said to combust, but I doubt that the king would have us killed this way. Not when there’s an Illusionári and a Robári missing from his Hand of Moria. The temptation to tame us, add us to his collection, toys for him to control, is far too sweet.
“It’s food,” I say.
I can hear the growl in Margo’s stomach.
I arrange the meal on top of the thick cloth—a loaf of still-warm bread, a small wheel of goat cheese, sliced pieces of dried meat, a bundle of dark purple grapes, and a pot of honey.
“Eat,” I tell her. She doesn’t move. Her hands are balled in stubborn fists, but we’ve both known hunger and no matter where this food came from, she can’t turn her nose up at it.
I take a couple of grapes for myself and the heel of the bread. I have no appetite, but I need to keep something in my stomach. I remember being on missions together, never knowing when our next meal would come. The taxmen at the tollhouses sometimes robbed us of our food when we passed the checkpoints.
When everything is gone, she tilts the pot of honey, pouring the last few droplets onto her tongue. She shakes the cloth open, but there isn’t any more food. Only something metal that falls on the ground.
She holds up a small knife to me with a smile. “Supper and a weapon.”
For a moment, I wonder if she means to use it on me. If I were her, I’d be tempted to. I’m no Persuári, but I can feel how deeply her anger toward me runs.
She tucks the blade into a hidden pocket on the inside of her dress. “It seems your Magpie has deep influence, Ren.”
Even Nuria wouldn’t risk coming down here. “No, I think it was my attendant, Leo. He was always kind to me. I wasn’t sure if I could trust him because he was in Justice Méndez’s service, but I do.”
“Perhaps that was his job. To get you to trust him.”
“Perhaps.” I push myself up. “But then why give us the blade?” The cold has made my legs numb, and so I pace and pace, telling her about my time here, the search for the weapon. The prince must still have it. We can’t fight back from this cell.
“Méndez won’t be able to stay away for long,” I say. I know him. He’s going to try to teach me a lesson.
“Méndez,” Margo says slowly. “Did he hurt you—before?”
I shake my head. “He has always treated me well. That’s how he won me over as a child, and he thinks I am the same now. But I promise, Margo, I’ll get you out of here even if I have to leave a wake of Hollows behind us. I swore I wouldn’t become a monster. But that’s what they want me to be, so I’m going to give them exactly what they’re asking for.”
“That’s all we are to them, isn’t it?” Margo asks, and I realize this is the longest we’ve ever talked without fighting. “Truce?”
It would be nice if we weren’t locked up in this cell. “Truce.”
After a while, the damp cold weakens me, and we gather on the cot. It has holes and the hay and dirt stuffed inside it is spilling out, but it’s better than the floor. I fight sleep, but a moment later, it pulls me in, enveloping me in total darkness.
When I wake, I start to my feet.
“Margo!” I cry out for her, but her reply is muffled by the gag in her mouth. There’s the rattle of chains as she puts up a fight.
Someone shoves a dirty rag in my mouth and then covers my face with a black cloth. I gag at the putrid smell of it. I kick and punch, but the guard is too strong. They shove my bare hand into a man’s glove and clamp my wrists in irons.
I can feel my heart in my ears, pumping a warning that I can’t heed because it’s too late. This is how it ends, isn’t it? In the dark, always in the dark.
“Sit her there,” Justice Méndez says, his voice crisp and cold. “Put the other over there.” The guard shoves me into a chair and ties each of my legs around the wooden posts. I rest my chained hands on my lap. My head covering smells like mold and rot. I wonder if someone died while wearing it.