Ben choked, waving his hands to keep balance. Instinct from his training with defensors flared countermoves into his limbs, but Pierce’s words stayed him.
“I’m not—” Ben tried. “I wouldn’t—”
“Stop!”
Ben and Pierce turned to see Lu, Gunnar, and Paxbenonly paces from them. The clatter and shouting of the escape rushed all around.
Pierce surveyed Ben’s group. “Devereux Bell? What the hell—”
Devereux Bell? Oh.Ben’s vision spun, his mind tripping over Pierce’s grip.Paxben.
“We’re with your husband!” Vex tried. “We came with the Tuncian syndicate too, for Cansu Darzi, but we’re getting you out—this is Argrid’s doing—”
“That I agree with.” Pierce retightened his grip on Ben’s throat.
As Ben struggled to think through which move would cause the least damage to Pierce, Lu swooped in and ripped Pierce off him. Air rushed into Ben’s lungs and he doubled forward, scrambling until his hand connected with someone.
He expected his cousin. But Gunnar slid one arm around Ben’s waist, his eternal heat enveloping Ben in a cocoon of warmth.
Ben was pretty sure he could stand on his own just fine. But he didn’t tell Gunnar that.
Lu shoved Pierce back. One of his men slammed his forearm into Lu’s chest.
Vex ripped something out of his ear. “Stand down, Pierce! God, talk to your husband, all right? It’s Budwig. He’s got the other one. He’s in the guardhouse.”
Pierce grabbed the Budwig. “We’ll see how much longerhe’s my husband after letting Tuncians and Devereux Bell rescue me. I cannot believe this.” He thrust the Budwig into his ear. “Nathaniel Gilroy Blaise, you incompetent, scheming—” A pause. “Devereux Bell?And you listened to him? Pious God help me, I leave you alone with our syndicate and you make an alliance with the Tuncians and— Oh, don’t you take that tone with me. Itisour syndicate.”
Pierce elbowed around the remaining raiders who crowded the hall. When he got to the end, he looked over his shoulder.
“Are you coming? Nathaniel claims to have an elaborate escape in the works.”
Pierce took another step and slipped on mildew. He stomped the rest of the way into the darkness, grumbling about how he wasn’t made for this kind of environment.
Lu and Vex started off behind Pierce, Gunnar helping Ben to walk. One of Pierce’s raiders touched Ben’s arm as they passed.
“Thank you,” the man said. “We’ve been in a cell with him for two weeks.Thank you.”
Another of the raiders punched the first one. “He’s the Head’s husband!”
“Doesn’t stop him from being a spoiled pain in the ass.”
Gunnar dragged Ben out of the hall, the slightest grin tugging at his lips.
“Which part of this do you find funny?” Ben asked as they squeezed into the narrow passage. They were chest tochest, and Gunnar seemed to realize the awkwardness of holding Ben. He let go and dipped ahead.
“Pierce sounds like you,” Gunnar said over his shoulder. “How you talked to your defensors on the ship, telling them to do this and get you that. I like that word.Spoiled.”
Ben squeaked offense. “I talked to them like that to make themthinkI was—that was a ruse—you knew it was a ruse! You were part of it!”
Gunnar looked back at Ben again with a taunting smile. Ben’s chest ruptured, filling him with a heat as intense as when he had been in Gunnar’s arms.
By the time they got free of the prison,chaosseemed far too simple a word to describe the courtyard. People sprinted in every direction, most following the direction of a raider on an overturned crate who bellowed the way to the escape boats. Other people ran for freedom beyond the gate and into the city, electing to risk their luck with the Argridian defensors again.
The prison’s alarm still tolled, and out in the city, defensors shouted, booted feet thundering up the road—and an explosion came that Ben recognized.
He shouted, “Cannons!” a mere breath before part of the courtyard’s wall erupted.
Stones on the outward-facing side of it shot into the air, a shower of dust and shards of rock. Everyone in the courtyard ducked at once, the silence after the blast punctured by screams. Where there had been chaos was nowutter bedlam—bodies shoved and fought for escape, children wailed, raiders brandished pistols over their heads in search of an enemy.
