An Ember in the Ashes (Ember Quartet #1)(96)

“Be quick about it,” the old woman says when I appear in the kitchen to resume my duties. “There’s a nasty storm coming, and I need you and Kitchen-Girl to board up the windows before they’re blown out.”

The city is strangely quiet, its cobbled lanes emptier than usual, its spires shrouded in unseasonable fog. The smells of bread and beast, smoke and steel are dulled, as if the mist has weakened their potency.

Conscious of my freshly healed limbs, I move gingerly. But even after a half hour of walking, all that remains of the beating I took are ugly bruises and a dull soreness. I head first to the couriers’ office in Execution Square, hoping that the Resistance is still waiting for me. The rebels don’t disappoint. Within seconds of entering the square, I smell cedarwood. Moments later, Keenan materializes out of the fog.

“This way.” He says nothing of my injuries, and I’m stung by his lack of concern. Just as I’m willing myself not to care, he takes my hand as if it’s the most natural thing in the world and leads me to the back room of a cramped, abandoned shoe shop.

Keenan sets a spark to a lamp hanging on the wall, and as the light flares, he turns and looks me full in the face. The aloofness drops. For a second, he’s unveiled, and I know with lightning certainty that behind that coolness he feels something for me. His eyes are almost black as he takes in every bruise.

“Who did this?” he asks.

“An Aspirant. It’s why I missed the meeting. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?” He is incredulous. “Look at you—look what they’ve done to you. Skies. If your father was alive and knew I let this happen—”

“You didn’t let it happen.” I put a hand on his arm, surprised at the tautness of his body, like a wolf raring for a fight. “It’s no one’s fault but the Mask who did it. And I’m better now.”

“You don’t have to be brave, Laia.” His words are spoken with a quiet fierceness, and I suddenly feel shy of him. He raises his hand, slowly tracing my eyes, my lips, the curve of my neck with the tip of his finger.

“I’ve been thinking about you for days.” He puts his warm hand against my face, and I want so much to lean into it. “Hoping I’d see you in the square wearing a gray scarf so this can all be over. So that you can get your brother back. And after, we could . . . you and I could . . . ”

He trails off. My breath comes in short, shallow bursts, and my skin tingles in wild impatience. He moves closer, drawing up my gaze, pinning me with his eyes. Oh skies, he’s going to kiss me . . . .

Then, bizarrely, he steps away from me. His eyes are guarded again, his face empty of any emotion but a sort of professional detachment. My skin burns in embarrassment at the rejection. A second later, I understand.

“There she is,” a gruff voice sounds from the door, and Mazen enters the room. I look to Keenan, but he appears almost bored, and I’m shaken at how his eyes can go cold as quickly as a candle being blown out.

He’s a fighter, a practical voice chides me. He knows what’s important. As should you. Focus on Darin.

“We missed you this morning, Laia.” Mazen takes in my injuries. “Now I see why. Well, girl. Do you have what I want? Do you have an entrance?”

“I have something.” The lie takes me by surprise, as does the smoothness with which I tell it. “But I need more time.” Surprise flashes across Mazen’s face for a brief, naked second. Is it my lie that’s caught him off guard? My request for more time? Neither, my instinct tells me. Something else. I fidget as I remember what Cook said days ago. You ask him where, exactly, your brother is in Central Prison. What cell?

I muster my courage. “I . . . have a question for you. You know where Darin is, right? Which prison? Which cell?”

“Of course I know where he is. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be spending all my time and energy figuring out how to free him, now would I?”

“But . . . well, Central is so heavily guarded. How will you—”

“Do you have a way into Blackcliff or not?”

“Why do you need one?” I burst out. He’s not answering my questions, and some stubborn part of me wants to shake the answers loose from him. “How will a secret entrance to Blackcliff help you free my brother from the most fortified prison in the south?”

Mazen’s gaze hardens from wariness to something close to anger. “Darin’s not in Central,” he says. “Before the Moon Festival, the Martials moved him to the death cells in Bekkar Prison. Bekkar provides backup guard to Blackcliff. So when we launch a surprise attack on Blackcliff with half of our forces, the soldiers will pour out of Bekkar to Blackcliff, leaving the prison open for our other forces to take.”

“Oh.” I fall silent. Bekkar is a small prison in the Illustrian Quarter, not too far from Blackcliff, but that’s all I know about it. Mazen’s plan makes sense now. Perfect sense. I feel like an idiot.

“I didn’t mention anything to you, or anyone else”—he looks pointedly at Keenan—“because the more people who know about a plan, the more likely it is to be compromised. So, for the last time: Do you have something for me?”

“There’s a tunnel.” Buy time. Say anything. “But I have to figure out where it lets out.”

“That’s not enough,” Mazen says. “If you have nothing, then this mission is a failure—”