Chapter 18
The cellar door slammed shut and Lily heard the rattle of the keys in the lock. There was silence in the cellar for a few minutes as she listened to the sound of Alice Brewer’s footsteps retreating.
“Are ye hurt?” Magnus asked. “We heard shouting and a scuffle.”
Lily was not all right, not really. Her spine was screaming at her and every muscle in her body was aching, but she wasn’t about to let that scupper her plans.
“I’m fine,” she lied. “It just proved a little harder to get hold of than I’d planned. I ended up having a tussle with Alice.”
“But ye did get it?” Magnus asked.
Lily nodded. “I got it.”
Raising her shackled hands, she opened her palm to reveal a small silver brooch in the shape of a burning torch. It had several sharp prongs and a pin on the other side.
“Will this do the trick?”
The two men peered at it.
“Only one way to find out,” Emeric replied. “Give it here.”
The archer had recovered somewhat over the last few hours and seemed much more alert. He took the brooch from Lily’s outstretched hand. His fingers nimble and practiced, he inserted the pin into the lock of Lily’s manacles. She watched as he carefully worked the pin, Eberwyn’s words echoing in her head.
Oskar works for us now.
No. She would not believe it.
The sound of movement upstairs echoed through the dim cellar, the tramp of boots and raised voices.
“That’s it,” Emeric said. “The guards changing shifts. Right on time.”
It had turned out that Magnus and Emeric had not been idle during their incarceration. They had been watching the guards closely and carefully measuring when they changed shifts and the time-lapse between them.
It was this information that had led to their plan. Over the hours that they’d been shut down here, they’d gone through various ideas of how to escape. The first thing was getting out of these shackles and as they had no key, the only way to do that was to pick the lock, and for that they needed something sharp and metal—just like the brooch they had seen pinned to Alice’s tunic each time she’d come down to taunt them. They’d had no chance to swipe it though—until now. Lily had seized her chance when they’d taken her upstairs to treat Alfred and she was only grateful that she’d managed to steal it without being caught.
Right. Step one of their plan was complete. On to step two.
“We need to be quick,” Magnus said, watching with a furrowed brow, his gaze darting between Emeric and the lock. As the pin finally clicked and the manacles fell open, Lily, felt a brief moment of triumph. It had worked!
Then footsteps thudded upstairs.
“Quickly!” Emeric hissed urgently. “Get to the door!”
“But what about you? I can’t leave you here!”
“Aye, ye can, lass,” Magnus said. “We agreed, remember? We only have a few minutes while the guards change. Ye must do this. Get to the guild house and bring help.”
Lily nodded, took the brooch, and crept up the steps to the door. It was locked as she knew it would be.
