My gaze flicks across the junction, searching fast. Options. Angles.
Could I take him down? One clean strike, maybe. But I’d have to get close. And he’s solid, thick-necked, squared shoulders. Not the kind that drops easy. Not without magic, and that’s a whole different kind of mess.
Breath snags, fingers twitch at my side. I’m so focused on calculating the impossible that I miss it. The quiet shift of weight, the slip of fabric. My pack slides from my shoulder and hits the floor with a soft, traitorous thud.
The second guard snaps his head toward the sound?—
But before I can bolt, a hand clamps over my mouth, another hooks my shoulder, and I’m yanked backward into the dark.
“What are you doing?” Ezzy hisses.
Fuck, what is she doing here? What the hell am I supposed to say—Just casually manipulating your friend so I can sneak through a tunnel and break out of this sanctified prison?
“You were really going to try and convince Brian to let you out?” She asks.
Right. Of course she already knows. I forgot how annoyingly smart she is. No point lying now. Not like I’ve got some better excuse tucked in my back pocket.
“Would you really blame me?” I hiss back. “After today? After all of it?”
I brace for the expected, some wide-eyed defence of the Citadel. Denial, loyalty, something. But she just stares at me. One long second. Head tilted. Then?—
“No. I wouldn’t.”
I blink. “Wait, what... you’re not here to stop me?”
“I thought about it…” She says, voice low, eyes not quite meeting mine. “When I heard the door close, I froze. Told myself I had thirty seconds to decide. Whether to call out. Or report you.” Her posture stiffens. “I ran the protocols in my head. Thought about what they’d expect me to do. What I’ve been trained to do. But then I pictured my little sister and although I wouldn’t want her to run. I’d want her to trust the system. To stay, follow the rules. To rise through it the right way...” The sentence trails, unfinished. Something flickers in her expression, then softens. “But I also wouldn’t want her to be alone. So I made the decision not to report you.” She swallows, gaze flicking toward the tunnel. “Just this once.”
God. She really means it. Still loyal, still bought into every polished lie they fed her since birth, but she made a choice. Her first one, maybe. And she choseme?
“So why come down here?” I ask, eyes narrow, not buying it. Not yet. “Why follow me if you’re not going to stop me?”
Ezzy shifts beside me, glancing down the corridor again, then sighs and turns back. “Because you let me in,” she says. “After the fight with Ryven, you didn’t hold back. You talked about your mom. About Bren. Needing help. Rhiann. Getting caught by Merrin. The deal.”
“So?”
She shrugs. “No one ever does that. Not with me, not really, especially not another girl. If this is what you need… then yeah, as a friend, I want to help. I want you safe.”
“But… the Citadel, Merrin, this is risky, Ezzy.”
She grins faintly. “Old Citadel blood, remember? I’ve got ties. No one questions me slipping in and out down here, even this late. Family visits, you know?”
Something tightens in my spine. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. This was the part where droppingmy walls is supposed to backfire. Where someone takes what you gave them and turns it into a weapon. That’s why I hold back. Always have. Even with Bren, who’s never done anything but stay, I still keep the sharpest pieces of me to myself. Because experience taught me trust doesn’t last, it just gives people better aim.
I thought Ezzy would fold. Or flinch. Or use it against me. But she hasn’t. Something twists hard in my chest, because I’ve been using her since I arrived. Smiling at the right moments, asking the right questions, keeping her close enough to be useful.
I told myself it was strategy, necessary. But the truth is... if I’d just treated her like this from the start—if I’d actually tried to be her friend—she might have helped me escape earlier and I could have avoided the guilt currently clawing its way up my throat.
I don’t deserve this type of...connection. But I want it. Maybe more than I should.
“I have an idea that may help…” Ezzy whispers, then hesitates. “But if you're not sure, if you're scared, we can still turn back. I’ll say I found you sleep walking. No one has to know.”
Her voice is soft, but there's something behind it, an edge of fear. Not for herself, I realise. For me.
“You don’t have to do this,” she adds, even quieter. “I just… I want you safe. That’s all.”
I stare at her, throat tight. My body wants to nod. To scream yes. It would be so easy, so simple, to let her cover for me, to pretend this never happened.
But I know how this ends if I stay.
