“What are we looking for?” Lucan asks, keeping his voice low.
“A black dragon, and a shield.” I walk down the rows of massive casks, studying the markings on the ends. There’s nothing remotely resembling a dragon or a shield. They’re all stamped with the marks of vineyards and vintners long gone.
He follows my lead, also scanning the casks. “I don’t see either.”
“Could we be in the wrong spot?”
“I—” I’m silenced as I spot a small label I overlooked. The name has almost completely flaked off:Shield Vintages. The name ispainted in a delicate, flowing script on a field of black-and-white flowers.
I cross to get a closer look.
“Shield Vintages,” Lucan reads aloud as he joins me. “But I don’t see a black dragon.”
“It’s not obvious,” I agree, a smile curling my lips. Callon knew I’d find it. He knew because he knows just how much I learned from Mum about the earth. “There is no ‘black’ dragon. Copper, green, purple, yellow, silver—no black.”
“There’s no dragon at all here.” Lucan squints, as if trying to figure out what’s making me so confident.
“No. But there is this.” I press my finger into one of the painted flowers: dragon’s breath done in black ink. “Black Dragon… Shield.”
“It seems like a stretch.”
“Unless you have a better idea?” I give it a knock, and it’s hollow, just as I suspected. I start searching for an opening or seam somewhere on the sides of the cask, thinking of the hidden door in the basement.
Lucan shifts to cover me as I search, his gaze trained on the stairs. “Maybe—”
“Ah-ha.”I find what I’m looking for—a vertical cut through the curved planks, not visible from the front. There’s another to the left of it. It’s a tight squeeze between the two casks, so I assume the door pushes in, and I’m proved right. It’s the same rush as whenever I managed to find a new door on the wall. A heady burst of hope.
Lucan’s eyes widen. He squeezes in beside me. “Do we go inside?”
“I didn’t come this far to back down now.”
“And here you want to call yourself a coward.” His breath is warm on my neck, sending shivers down my spine. For a second, I very nearly lean into him. To surrender, selfishly, to the safetyhe unknowingly offers. No starvation, no Tribunal, no dragons—only his warm hands and kind eyes and reassuring words.
“Isola?” Lucan’s tone shifts to concern.
“Sorry,” I murmur, duck my head, and step through the secret door, still far too aware of him as he follows me inside.
The interior of the cask is large enough to fit three people comfortably. There’s no back to it. Instead, it’s flush against the wall, with an opening carved through the stone. The inquisitors’ ability to create secret passages for themselves continues to impress me.
Light streams in through the gap. We share a look and slowly make our way toward the end, leaning against the strip of stone wall on either side of the opening, backs pressed into the curve of the cask, making ourselves as small as possible as we peer into the bright room beyond.
It’s a well-appointed kitchen. Pots and pans hang from hooks over darkened stoves. It’s spotless and completely vacant. Unsurprising, since it hasn’t seen much use for days now. My stomach grumbles and burns at the thought.
I get Lucan’s attention and point to a far corner, mouthing,Over there.
He leans a bit more to follow where I’m pointing—a door that looks very much like it’d be a larder. He returns to the safety of cover, locking eyes with me. We both share a wordless exchange I’ve only ever experienced with Saipha before. Without a sound, we know exactly what we’re going to do.
With a nod in unison, we move, keeping ourselves low while darting through the empty kitchen. Lucan is faster and opens the door. Luckily, it’s not locked. Like two little rats, we scurry inside.
The aroma of food hits me harder than the blow of one of the curates’ mallets during the vicar’s training in the months before the Tribunal. I stare in awe at the stocked larder. My stomachrumbles again, and a bit of saliva escapes from the corner of my mouth.
There’s dense barley bread in flat loaves, salted pork, dehydrated fruits and mushrooms, wheels of hardened cheese, even fresh kale and root vegetables… It’s all here and more. Food that we never saw, even from the start, as supplicants.
So much, and we can’t even bring back any to share with the rest of the supplicants whose stomachs are twisting in knots just as painful as mine. There’s no way we could carry enough. And even if we could, it’d risk the other supplicants thinking we’ve “held out” like Benj accused us of and actually turning on us. Or, worse, the inquisitors knowing we found their secret passage to the kitchen. And who knows what they’d do to us then.
Still, I can’t stop a scowl that’s directed at the inquisitors who aren’t even here.How dare they do this to us. Rage, as hot as the vicar made me feel when I was helpless on the floor, flares in me. I’m so sick of feeling helpless, crushed beneath the authority of people I don’t even respect.
Lucan grabs my hand and leans in to whisper, “We can only take a little of each thing, so they won’t notice missing food, but eat what you can while you do.” He continues to read my mind.
