Amador let a final fat tear roll down her cheek before she nodded. “Okay. What’s your plan?”
“See that rope there?” I asked. I had to use my chin to point. “That’s the rope that’s holding up the net. If we can cut it, we can get back to the ground.”
“You mean fall.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“No.”
“Can you grab it?”
Amador wiggled next to me, and I didn’t complain when her elbow dug into my shoulder. “I think so.”
She stretched her arm out through the net, but her fingers just barely missed.
“It’s too far. We have to swing,” she said.
“Together,” I said.
It took us a second to coordinate, but once we started shifting together, leaning from one side to another, the entire net started to swing back and forth until, finally, Amador was able to grab on to the rope.
“Got it!” she cried.
“Awesome. I’ve got a knife at my hip. Can you reach it?”
I never went anywhere without Elias’s gift. It was like a reminder that he was always there to watch over me. Now it really felt like he was.
I felt her fingers brush against the hilt of my knife, and she huffed and puffed, straining to grab it. “Almost,” she said. “Hold on.” She gave one final push, and the knife slipped out of its sheath. She let out a gasp of victory and then yelped.
“What?” I asked, panicked.
“I nearly dropped it. I’ve got it, though.”
“Okay, good job. You’re doing great.”
Amador seemed taken aback that I actually gave her a compliment. She cleared her throat. “Okay, hold me steady. I’m going to cut us loose.”
The rope vibrated while Amador started sawing through the net, making a scraping sound as she went. At first, it was slow going, and then gravity took over. The net broke, my stomach floated up with a horrible lurch, and we fell into a heap on the jungle floor.
Amador let out a cry, and my back slammed hard onto the ground, but we were free. I kicked the net off us and found Amador clutching her wrist. Fortunately, neither of us had landed on the knife. It lay on the ground safely away from us, so all I had were a few bumps and bruises.
“I’m okay,” she said, clutching her wrist to her chest, though her eyes swam with tears. “Just a sprain.”
Amador and I stayed there on the ground for a moment to catch our breaths.
“I’ll keep your secret, too,” I said. “I won’t tell anyone.”
Tearily, Amador looked at me, color rising in her cheeks, and then back up at the sky. “Tha—thank you. I’ll do my best to help you however I can…”
“Really?”
“We can’t have a monster for a queen, can we?”
18
By thetimeAmador and I made it back to the great house, everyone else had already returned. It had been a while, and obviously we had worried them. Qian ran up to us, breathless. “Are you all right?” he asked. “We started to wonder what happened to you.”
“Here’s your flower,” I said, holding it out to him.
