Benedict watched him fall while I staggered away and stooped to pick up my dagger.This proved to be unwise.My head swam, and the next thing I knew, I’d sat down hard on my backside and Benedict was staring down at me in wrathful disapproval.
“How are we supposed to get out, Mary?”he demanded, not bothering to ask if I was all right.“Tell me you have a better plan than this.”
I bit off a colorful retort, centered around his ingratitude, and instead pointed to the locked door.At the same time Tane reappeared from the wall, a half-formed gust of sapphire mist, and we reunited.
My dizziness and aches began to abate, though they didn’t fade entirely.I fumbled for my dagger and sheathed it, then snatched up my pistol and patted at the wall for a handhold.
“Where are the keys?”Benedict hauled me upright, his grasp debatably more painful than my head, then began to search my pockets.
“Already in the door, you ungrateful prick.”I fended him off and pointed to where the ring dangled in the lock.He immediately abandoned me, stepping over the unconscious guard and beginning to try keys.
I crowded in as he worked.
“Back away.I will not leave you behind,” he growled without looking at me.The keys jingled, obnoxiously merry in the tense stillness.
Back on the floor, the guard twitched and moaned.
“I wouldn’t put it past you,” I returned, one eye on the keys, one on the guard.
He scoffed.“I just saved you.Where do you think your courage came from?”
“I know,” I admitted.“Though I didn’t know your power was good for anything other than murder and seduction.”
A key turned in the lock with a satisfyingclunk.He shoved the door open and pocketed the keys.“Then you know very little.”
I inched past him warily.As soon as I was through Tane slipped out, heading for the far reaches of her tether to check the path ahead.That left me aching and weak, but my knees held, and I was grateful when Benedict fell in at my back—where he couldn’t see my sweating, pain-pale face.
We met no one else on our flight.Cellars packed with goods began to appear, and, at last, I smelled salt and brine and lantern oil.
Light bloomed as we entered an underground docking area, brimming with crates and barrels and rope-fastened bundles.A large archway of stone led to the sea, tall enough for a short mast to pass under at low tide—though it was waxing now—and it provided a murky glimpse of the sea beyond.
I stumbled to a halt, looking to Tane at the same time as Benedict looked at me.
“No boat?”the Magni asked.
No boat, no Illya.I spied the body of a guard down the way and signs of a struggle, but there was no one alive now.
“They were here, but they didn’t wait.”I darted onto the empty dock, boots clattering on the icy stone of the quay.I looked at the sea entrance, shrinking with the rising tide.“But we can’t be so late!The tide is coming in faster than we expected but it’s still not… He should be here.Why would he leave?”
Benedict looked around, taking in every inch of the man-made cavern.His expression was dangerously flat.“There’s nothing else.Not even a skiff.”
I stared at the water and the ice on the rocks.Readying myself, I slipped my fingers up to pull my pistol from its brace.It might be wet and useless if we followed my new plan, but even a water-choked pistol was better than none.
“I can swim out.Can you?”
“I’d rather drown than go back to a cell.”
As ready as I was, the cold water left me clinging to a mooring post, gasping and trying not to let my muscles seize.Luckily my toes touched the bottom, and I didn’t go under as the initial shock passed.
Shivering in nothing but his breeches, Benedict watched me from above with a critical eye.He held our bundle of clothing, belongings and two muskets—all tightly wrapped in plentiful oil cloth—on his shoulder.As I slowly stopped gasping, he handed it down to me.
I held the bundle as he lowered himself into the water.
“Bloody fucking Saint,” he rattled, nostrils flared and every muscle taut—which, as thin as he was now, were already prominent beneath bruised, sore-scattered flesh.He stifled the rest of his complaints and took the bundle back from me.“I’m ready.”
I heard the lie in his voice but let my legs float up and began to swim.
Each stroke felt like an eternity.Each little wave that rocked me found a portion of skin not yet numbed and the shock of thecold went through me again.But by the time we splashed out into the open air, Tane’s preserving warmth had come.I moved more quickly, eyeing the cliffs for a path or staircase.
