An Ember in the Ashes(118)

“He was sent there ten days ago,” I say. “Just after the Moon Festival.”
I raise my still-cuffed wrists. “I have to go after him.”
I hold my breath as he considers. Teluman helping me is the first step in a plan that depends almost entirely on other people doing what I ask of them.
“Lock the door,” he says.
It takes him nearly three hours to break the cuffs off, and he says almost nothing the entire time, except to occasionally ask me if I need anything. When I’m free of the cuffs, he offers me a salve for my chafed wrists and then disappears into the back room. A moment later he emerges with a beautifully decorated scim—the same blade he used to scare the ghuls away the day I met him.
“This is the first true Teluman blade I made with Darin,” he says.
“Take it to him. When you free him, you tell him Spiro Teluman will be waiting in the Free Lands. You tell him we have work to do.”
“I’m afraid,” I whisper. “Afraid I’ll fail. Afraid he’ll die.” The fear flares through me then, as if by speaking of it I’ve breathed life into it. Shadows gather and pool near the door. Ghuls.
Laia, they say. Laia.
“Fear is only your enemy if you allow it to be.” Teluman hands me Darin’s blade and nods to the ghuls. I turn and, as Teluman speaks, advance upon them.
“Too much fear and you’re paralyzed,” he says. The ghuls aren’t cowed yet. I raise the scim. “Too little fear and you’re arrogant.” I strike out at the closest ghul. It hisses and skitters under the door. Some of its fellows back away, but others lunge at me. I force myself to stand fast, to meet them with the edge of the blade. Moments later, the few that were brave enough to remain flee with wrathful hisses. I turn back to Teluman. He finds my eyes.
“Fear can be good, Laia. It can keep you alive. But don’t let it control you. Don’t let it sow doubts within you. When the fear takes over, use the only thing more powerful, more indestructible to fight it: your spirit. Your heart.”
The sky is dark when I leave the smithy with Darin’s scim hidden beneath my skirt. Martial squads patrol the streets in force, but I avoid them easily in my black dress, blending into the night like a wraith.
As I walk, I remember how Darin tried to defend me from the Mask during the raid, even when the man gave him the chance to run. I imagine Izzi, small and frightened yet determined to befriend me though she knew well what the cost could be. And I think of Elias, who could have been miles away from Blackcliff by now, free as he always wanted, if he’d only let Aquilla kill me.
Darin, Izzi, and Elias put me first. No one made them do it. They did it because they felt it was the right thing to do. Because whether they know what Izzat is or not, they live by it. Because they are brave.
My turn to do right, a voice says in my head. Not Darin’s words anymore, but my own. That voice has always been my own. My turn to live by Izzat. Mazen said I didn’t know what Izzat was. But I understand it better than he ever will.
By the time I navigate the treacherous hidden trail and scramble up to the Commandant’s courtyard, the school is still and quiet. The lamps in the Commandant’s study are lit, and voices drift out her open window, too faint to hear. That suits me fine—not even the Commandant can be in two places at once.
The slaves’ quarters are dark but for one light. I hear muffled sobbing.
Thank the skies. The Commandant hasn’t taken her for interrogation yet.
I peer through the curtain of her room. She isn’t alone.
“Izzi. Cook.”
They sit on the cot together, Cook with her arm around Izzi. When I speak, their heads jerk up, faces blanching like they’ve been confronted with a ghost. Cook’s eyes are red, her face wet, and when she sees me, she lets out a cry. Izzi throws herself at me, hugging me so tightly I think she’ll break a rib.
“Why, girl?” Cook wipes her tears away almost angrily. “Why come back? You could have run. Everyone thinks you’re dead. There’s nothing here for you.”
“But there is something here.” I tell Cook and Izzi all that has happened since this morning. I tell them the truth about Spiro Teluman and Darin and what the two of them were trying to do. I tell them of Mazen’s betrayal. Then I tell them my plan.
After I finish, they sit silently. Izzi fiddles with her eye patch. Part of me wants to take her by the shoulders and beg her for help, but I can’t coerce her into doing this. This has to be her choice. Cook’s choice.

“I don’t know, Laia.” Izzi shakes her head. “It’s dangerous...”
“I know,” I say. “I’m asking so much of you. If the Commandant catches us—”
“Contrary to what you might think, girl,” Cook says, “the Commandant is not all-powerful. She underestimated you, for one. She misread Spiro Teluman—he is a man and so, in her mind, is only capable of a man’s base appetites. She hasn’t connected you to your parents. She makes mistakes, like anyone else. The only difference is that she doesn’t make the same mistake twice. Keep that in mind and you just might be able to outwit her.”
The old woman considers for a moment. “I can get what we need from the school’s armory. It’s well stocked.” She stands up, and when Izzi and I stare at her, she lifts her eyebrows.
“Well, don’t just sit there like lumps on a log.” She gives me a kick, and I yelp. “Move.”
***
Hours later, I awake to Cook’s hand on my shoulder. She bends down beside me, her face barely visible in the predawn gloom.