Lu shushed him but urged him forward and closed the door behind him. “Teo—I need you to go back to my room. Please, I cannot explain now, but—”
“No.” He stomped his foot. “I saw your note. I can read, you know.”
The blame was heavy in his tone.
Anna left me. Mama left me. Now you’re leaving too.
Lu’s heart weakened. “Teo.” She bent and took his hands. “Trust me, all right? I promise, I will return as soon as I am able. I . . . there’s something I have to do.”
Teo ripped out of her grasp, studying Vex. “With him? I’m coming. I followed you this far, didn’t I? I can do this! You shouldn’t be alone. All right? No one should be alone.”
Warmth gathered in Lu’s eyes, tears on the edge.
On the other side of the door, hinges shrieked.
The contingent sent to gather Vex for the Council.
Panic broke through, but Lu knew what to do with panic—she focused on her plan, just her plan, and breathing, just breathing.
Out the window. Through the garden. Over the castle wall. Go.
“Teo, return to my room,” Lu ordered.
Teo exhaled, the chirp of a scream starting to escape. Lu dove for him, but a pair of arms swept in.
Vex lifted Teo and settled him on his hip. “We haven’t met. I’m Devereux Bell.”
Teo gaped, wonderstruck. “I’m Teo. Casales. I’m Teo Casales.”
“Now, Teo Casales”—Vex looked back to the window—“how good are you at climbing?”
“The best!”
“Glad to hear it. It isn’t too far, but you think we can make it?”
“Stop!” Lu grabbed the window. Vex leaned halfway out, Teo clinging to his neck, the two of them peering down the single-story drop. “He isn’t coming,” she stated.
Teo sulked. “Devereux Bell wants me to come.”
“You think we have time to get him back to your room?” Vex nodded toward the door.
The soldiers were no doubt in the alcove by now. They had seconds. Less than that.
Teo beamed at her, victorious.
Vex didn’t give her a chance to argue. He hefted Teo onto his back, the boy’s legs looping Vex’s waist and his arms around Vex’s neck.
“Hold on, kid,” he said, straddled the window, and jumped.
Lu squealed at their descent, but it was only a heartbeat before they hit the grass.
Vex looked up at her, grinning. “Coming, Princesa?”
“Yeah, Princesa—are you coming?” Teo echoed.
Behind Lu, someone shouted. The soldiers had found the bodies in the alcove.
She jumped out the window after the mad raider and a giggling Teo, making sure they both saw her scowl as she pushed ahead of them, into the garden.
On their way to the wall, they passed a group of servants, harvesting sweet potatoes. Soldiers would question them.
“It was Bell, yes!”
“He abducted Miss Andreu? And the young Casales boy?”
“No—it was Miss Andreu who led the way!”
Lu burst through the kitchen gardens’ gate with more force than necessary. The closest exit would be at the stables, one of the first places the guards would look. Or they could climb the wall and descend the rocky, perilous cliff to Lake Regolith and make their way along the coast until they reached a traversable beach. . . .
They would have to risk the stables.
Lu followed the garden’s fence through the compound, straining to hear any sound from the castle. Every minute counted down in her mind, making her desperate. But Vex kept pace with Teo on his back, and in seconds they huddled against the largest barn.
“All right.” Lu leaned around the corner, eyeing the space between them and the open gate. “There are five soldiers—two on the parapet of the guardhouse, three on the ground.”
Vex nudged Lu. When she gave him a look, he held out his hand.
“Weapon, please.”
“No.”
“I said please.”
“No.”
“If we have to fight, I’ll need—”
“No.”
Vex huffed. “What, you’re the only one who’s allowed to go around knocking people out? My life is at risk, Princesa. Let me fight for it.”
“You lost that privilege the moment you—”
“Um. Lu?”
Lu looked at Teo. He stared up at the castle.
Then she heard it—the signal bell, tolling high and fast.
“Shit,” she cursed.
Vex and Teo gaped at her with identical expressions of horror. Lu sighed, a thousand things she wanted to do warring in her mind, but she settled on pointing at Vex.
“Follow me. Do exactly what I tell you.” And she walked out from behind the barn.
Vex stumbled after her. “What are you doing?”
One of the tricks she’d learned during the revolution—if she acted as though she belonged, people overlooked her. At least a half dozen times, she had strolled out of fortified places she’d had no business escaping from.
The three soldiers on the ground spoke with a newly arrived soldier, who was no doubt relaying news of Vex’s escape. But they would be looking for a single prisoner, not three people, and not with a child.
The gate operated on a system of weights and pulleys, mainly an iron chain that attached to a crank at the base of the guardhouse. The crank sat next to the talking soldiers. Lu clamped her fists, thinking.
She approached the open gate, walking as though she were a servant leaving after a day’s work. Vex hunched behind her, letting his hair hide his face and distinguishing features. Teo clung to him, eyes wide, but all Lu heard from him was a softly whispered song.
“Flow on, my friends, flow on with me—”
The revolution song.
Two paces, and they’d be outside the castle.
“Miss Andreu?”
Lu froze. The gate was above them. She batted her hand against the small of her back as she rotated, signaling for Vex to continue on. This wasn’t an outcome she had considered—if she got caught, but Vex escaped with Teo.
If that happens, drown me now.
Lu dredged up a smile as one of the soldiers pulled away from the others: Branden, the captain of the guard.
She cursed again. But noted his position, right in front of the gate’s crank.
Branden blushed as he registered her irregular clothing. “Um, Miss Andreu, what’re—”
He looked past her, to Vex, slumping down the road with Teo on his back.
Before Branden could piece anything together, Lu pulled the most harmless thing she could out of her satchel—a sack of Variegated Holly that she had altered into a sound grenade. The white and green leaves were usually ignited to create explosions, but this sack contained Holly leaves that Lu had softened by soaking in concentrated Sweet Peat. A stalk of Hemlight within would ignite upon impact, and the Variegated Holly leaves would rupture in a cacophony. Harmless, but loud.
“Captain,” Lu said, taking steps backward. “I am sorry.”
Branden paused in front of the gate’s crank.
Lu smashed the grenade to the ground. The impact lit the Hemlight, releasing first a spark—but it caught the Holly, and the whole sack ruptured in one great, trembling BOOM! that sent Branden flailing back. He hit the crank, releasing the gears, and the gate above groaned, creaked, and plummeted into the dusty road with a resounding thunk.
But Lu was already on the other side, racing down the road with Vex and Teo.
Vex had a feeling he’d have to get used to Lu leaving him in equal states of shock, horror, and, if he was being honest, attraction.
The castle bell warred with the shouting guards fighting to reopen the gate. Vex hooted into the air, not breaking stride.
“How did you do that?” he asked. “Variegated Holly, right? But it didn’t kill him—damn, Princesa, you’re an enigma. You have to explain this to me.”
“I do not have to ex
plain anything,” Lu threw back, winded. “I will give you the altered Variegated Holly, but I never promised to explain how I make—”
“That’s not what I meant.”
The narrow path dumped them onto a larger road. To the right, it led to the castle’s main entrance; to the left, New Deza. Lu guided them to the left, and Vex matched her as she slowed to a walk alongside the traffic of the port. Humidity made everything sticky, but Vex found he didn’t mind the heat or the stench of bodies that greeted them from New Deza.
Vex shifted so he could lace his fingers under Teo to create a more comfortable seat for the kid. “I meant how you know any of this,” he continued. “You’re the daughter of politicians, but you can escape from a dungeon in less than—what, ten minutes? Shit, Princesa, you waste that talent listening to Council meetings?”
“She didn’t waste anything!” Teo leaped to her defense, kicking with enthusiasm. The kid was stronger than he seemed—he sent Vex teetering, his boot sinking into a puddle of oily water on the side of the road. “She tried hard to help my sister with the magic. Didn’t you, Lu? Tell him!”
Vex watched Lu for clarification. She winced, pivoting to let parcel-burdened maids edge past her through the crowd.
“That doesn’t matter.” Lu stopped outside a cobbler with its shutters thrown open to welcome a nonexistent breeze. “I freed you from the dungeon, raider. Now it’s your turn—how do we find Milo Ibarra before Argrid convinces the Council to start a civil war?”
“Oh, good. At least there’s nothing important riding on this.”
Lu didn’t laugh.
Vex’s initial thought was Yeah, how do we find Milo Ibarra? But hey, he’d take it step by step, like he always did. The first thing they’d need was transportation out of the port. Even if someone in New Deza would help them, their descriptions would be all over the city in less than an hour. Was the Rapid Meander docked where he’d left it before he’d gotten arrested? Eh, it was worth a shot.
Vex jostled Teo. “Hang on, kid—it’s gonna get rough.” He met Lu’s eyes with a smirk. “See if you can keep up.”
And he took off, cutting into the crowd, looking back to make sure Lu hadn’t lost him. She was on his heels—looking far from pleased.
They darted down cobblestone streets, pressing between horse-drawn carriages that crossed bridges over canals. After Vex led them down the fourth road where they’d had to step over a Mecht raider half-lucid on Narcotium Creeper, Lu shoved his arm.
“Is there a more civilized route we could take?” she demanded, eyes cutting to Teo.
Vex shot her an incredulous look. “Sure. Let’s go an hour out of our way to hit the three pretty boulevards of New Deza. Do you want a tour or do you want to get out of here?”
Lu balked, but her irritation deflated. “There are more than three routes that are less—”
She stopped, but Vex knew what she meant and let her know with a smirk.
“Less raider-infested? This port may be a different place than it was during the war, but that doesn’t mean it’s nice now.”
Lu’s annoyance returned. “I am done listening to you insult this island and its governing. It is a nice place now, no matter what you believe. I saw it at its worst, and while it may not yet be at its best, it is far from—”
Vex cut a face Nayeli often used to shut him up—eye rolled back in his head, tongue out as he mimicked how she was talking. Lu shrieked, but he picked up his pace, pushing down another alley.
Soon enough, Vex stumbled out onto a pretty promenade that ringed the northern part of New Deza’s docks. He gave Lu a look that said, Happy now?
Cafés and shops lined the road, filled with fancy people dining or throwing away galles on lavish knickknacks. Vex had no use for what Nayeli called the sickeningly expensive area of New Deza. He didn’t pause at any of the stores, even when Teo choked him and cried, “Chocolates!”—he raced down the tide wall’s steps to the docks.
“Here we go.” Vex stopped on a pier that ran from the northernmost military docks all the way to the southernmost merchant docks. Market stalls sat up against the tide wall, vendors peddling magic and other goods brought in by the boats anchored throughout the harbor.
At any moment in any port market on the island, vendors and buyers alike did their best to be nonchalant around soldiers. Part instinct from Argrid’s years of oppression; part self-preservation due to illegal activity they didn’t want coming to light.
The people here should have bustled from stall to stall, avoiding eye contact with soldiers while going about their day as perfectly normal citizens, thank-you-very-much.
But every soldier on patrol had a wide bubble of space between them and any patrons. Women with bulging sacks of the day’s purchases huddled on the side of the road, waiting for two soldiers to pass, and only then did they scurry on their way. A vendor hurled a tarp over his wares to close up shop before a soldier walked by. The castle bell, tolling in the distance, made people flinch and shoot worried eyes at the nearest guards.
Lu grabbed Teo’s leg to keep from losing them in the press of people. The stench was worse here than higher in the port, with body odor and various food items gone rancid.
“What’s here that will help us find General Ibarra?” Lu asked.
Vex nodded at the crowd. “Anything seem strange to you?”
Lu looked. She frowned. “Is this a trick? What am I meant to see?”
Vex rolled his eye. Maybe he was imagining things. All this talk of an Argridian plot and a staged abduction had gotten into his head.
He shook it off and waved at the vessels on the docks. Most were multistory paddled steamboats for sailing the deep waters of Lake Regolith; others were masted ships that had navigated the larger rivers from the Ovidic Ocean.
“Pick one,” he said.
Lu balked. “We’re going to steal a boat? One of these boats?”
Her voice rose, but she stopped when she saw him smiling at her.
“You’re joking.”
“Yes. Payback for not giving me a weapon.”
Lu’s frown darkened, but Vex waved his hands in surrender. “Seriously, though,” he continued. “My boat should be down—”
A body slammed into Lu, knocking her so hard that her hand on Teo’s leg was the only thing that saved her from getting sucked away into the crowd. Vex had a brief moment of annoyance—Damn it, don’t have time for a pickpocket—before he saw who it was: Nayeli.
He smiled. Good. His crew had probably guessed that the castle’s bell was because of his escape and had stationed themselves around the docks in hope that he’d show up.
Nayeli’s voluminous black curls made her eyes look larger and even more terrifying as she pointed at Lu in an unspoken question of Need me to kill her?
Vex smirked and shook his head.
Lu righted herself and whirled on Nayeli, who wiggled a knife in her hand.
Lu patted her holster, felt the missing blade, and snarled.
Oh, these two would be fun together.
Vex pouted. “Why’d she get one of your weapons and I didn’t? That doesn’t seem fair.”
Lu lunged and Nayeli ducked to the side, slipping away with a giggle. Vex opened his mouth to explain, but Lu grabbed his arm and yanked him along in the chase. He went, his laughter drowned out by the hubbub of the crowd.
Nayeli wove down the pier, ducking around stall patrons, leaping over parked wagons. Every so often she glanced back—not to see if she’d escaped, as Lu would think, but to make sure Lu pursued. She’d pause before blind turns, linger if traffic held them up.
They were almost to the dock where he’d left the Meander when Lu slammed to a halt outside a fish shop. Barrels of thrashing catfish made the air salty and sharp, and the look on Lu’s face gave Vex a vivid image of her dunking him in one of those barrels.
“Who. Is. She?” Lu demanded. She tightened her fingers around Vex’s arm.
“Ow, ow, ow—”
He teeter
ed, Teo squealed, and Lu released him.
“Nayeli!” Vex shouted. Then, to Lu, “She’s . . . well, she’s Nayeli.”
Explaining her would take too long.
Lu drew in a breath that no doubt would have carried a piercing remark, but Nayeli slipped in, Lu’s own blade pressed discreetly to her ribs.
“Shhhh.” Nayeli held a finger to her lips. “It isn’t nice to yell.”
Lu blinked at her. “Unless you wish for me to break your hand, return my knife.”
Nayeli presented her with the hilt. “Are we ready? It’s down that dock. Oh, he’s so cute!”
She launched herself at Teo, whose face went scarlet.
“Are we ready for what?” Lu asked.
“What do you mean ‘for what’?” Vex echoed. “You freed me in order to use my connections to find that Argridian, didn’t you? Well, meet one of my connections.”
Lu glanced at Nayeli. “She’s part of your crew.”
Vex nodded. He watched as Lu noted the area. Not the dodgiest section of the wharf, but not the nicest, and sure as hell not one claimed by the Mecht syndicate.
“Your boat is here,” she guessed.
For an answer, Vex started down one of the docks. The crowd thinned out the moment they stepped onto the wooden planks, the wood thumping under their boots. They passed at least a half dozen steamboats moored to wooden pillars before Vex cut a quick look at Lu, who stared forward, her face blank.
“How is your boat here?” she asked, too calmly.
Vex unwound Teo’s arms from his neck and tipped backward, depositing him onto the dock. “You can walk now, kid—we’re almost there.”
“We are?” Teo’s excitement was so tangible, they could bottle and sell it.
Nayeli giggled. “You’ll love it! Who are you?”
She took his hand and led him on as he told her and shot questions right back at her—the boat’s name, its size, its speed. Lu’s hand on Vex’s arm stopped him from following, her touch softer than moments ago. That gentleness was more intimidating.
“How is your boat here, Vex?”
He tried his best to look offended. “I had my own escape in the works, thank you.”
“You were able to contact your crew—the one you had lost when you pickpocketed me in the market? How did they get to you?”