She slid slowly down the wall and sat down with a thump, staring in shock.
It had been a trap from the start. Everything that had happened had been designed to lure the Order of the Osprey and King John here. The fair. The ‘dropped’ sigil of the Douglas clan. All deliberate. The audacity of the plan was staggering and the implications left Caitlin cold.
Anger. That was what she needed. Only anger could drown the fear. So, she clung to her fury as she listened to the sounds above dissipate and silence descend once more. She guessed that dawn was some hours away. That meant she had a few hours to figure out a way to stop this from happening.
She gritted her teeth and curled her fingers into fists. She intended to use those hours wisely.
***
CAITLIN WAS PRETTYsure that it was the longest night of her life. Even the time she’d spent trapped in the burning factory hadn’t seem to drag as much. Each second felt like hours, each hour felt like days, and every moment of it was spent in a kind of suspended terror, constantly on alert for any sound from the great hall above that would indicate morning had come and the war council was about to start, or for any sound of footsteps outside her door that would indicate Lorna had come to set her plan in motion.
Yet Caitlin heard nothing. As the slow hours ticked by, she could have been the last person left alive in the world, alone and forgotten in this dark hole.
But for the first time in a long time, she did not give into her fears. Kai’s words echoed in her head.Courage isnae about not being afraid. It’s about being afraid and doing what ye need to do anyway.
And hot on the heels of this memory came another.Ye can choose to stay on this path or ye can choose another. If ye choose the harder, darker path, it will be fraught with hardship. But the destination will make the journey worth it. It will lead ye to where ye are meant to be and the person ye are meant to be.
They were the words Irene MacAskill had spoken to her and maybe she was finally beginning to understand what the old woman had meant. It was time for her to decide what person she wanted to be.
Caitlin was a climber and she knew her knots. Yes, Alice had tied the knots well, but not well enough. First, she began to twist her wrists, moving them in methodical movements, until the rope stretched a tiny bit, allowing a small bit of give. Then she started working at the knot hooking the tiny bit of slack over the corner of the table and sawing it back and forth.
It took a long time and it hurt—she shaved off more than a few chunks of skin as she worked—but eventually the rope began to loosen. Bit by bit, she worked each strand free, first one side then the other.
After what seemed like hours, Caitlin was finally able to work her hands out of the ropes. She quickly rubbed her wrists together, trying to get some sensation back into them then untied the gag, flinging away the hateful rag and taking long, deep breaths.
She paused only long enough to catch her breath before she went to work again. Propping her feet against the wall, she worked at the ties around her ankles. Now that her hands were free, these were easier and eventually the rope slipped away from her feet and Caitlin sagged with relief.
She was free. Now she had to get out of here so she could warn Kai and the others. She took a few minutes to investigate her prison, running her hands along the walls looking for any cracks or grooves, and crouching down to feel around the corners of the floor. She even prodded at the ceiling with a broken shard of stone. But there was nothing, no way out of this place other than the door—and that was bolted from the outside.
She wanted to scream in frustration. Instead, she took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. There was still one option: wait for Lorna and her cronies to come down here, disable them somehow, and then make a run for it. Caitlin’s heart raced as she realized what she was about to do. It wasn’t going to be easy, not by any means, but if it meant getting out alive, then it was worth a shot.
She broke a leg off the chair to use as a makeshift club. She tested its weight in her hands, feeling the wood creak and bend under the strain. It wouldn’t be much of a weapon, but at least she had something.
All that was left now was for her to hunker down and wait.
Chapter 21
