“Alexei and I were tasked with bringing the Kniaz’s body back to Rivki. We came, and then we stayed. But this is not the time for stories.” Ana’s eyes darted to the right, in the direction of the guards’ station. “I’ll tell you everything later, if we live. But first, let us leave this despicable place. It smells like the unfortunate offspring of mold and putrid onions, and I fear you will, as well.”
Katerina snorted. Only Ana could make her smile under these circumstances. She’d opened her mouth to ask how, exactly, her friend planned to mastermind their escape, when a small figure materialized from the shadows behind Ana, delicate shoulders squared in determination.
“Hello again,” Sofi signed. “Sorry it took us so long.”
They’d both risked themselves to help her? Gods, Katerina was truly lucky to have friends like these. She vowed to make it up to them, if they all survived.
“I’m just glad you’re here at all,” she said to both of them. “But what?—”
The words died on her lips as Sofi withdrew a keyring from her pocket and, with her usual deft movements, rifled through the selections until she found what she was searching for. She slid the key into the lock of Katerina’s cell, which yielded, the door swinging open with a beleaguered groan.
Katerina strode through, wishing she could hug them both. “How did you do this?”
“Ana beguiled the guard,” Sofi signed, slipping the keys back into her pocket. “And then I knocked him out. It was quite fun, really. He was an oaf and a fool.”
Katerina turned her narrowed gaze on Ana. “You slept with that greasy buffoon?”
“Oh, you don’t want to know what I’ve done to get you out of here. Let’s go. But first…” She looked Katerina up and down, lips pursed. “Mold and onions,” she muttered, but pulled Katerina into her arms anyway, hugging her tight. “Don’t ever do that to me again, you hear? First the Underworld, now this. Are you trying to turn my gorgeous hair white?”
A choked laugh escaped Katerina despite herself. She pulled back, raising her shackled wrists. “Please tell me the key to these is on that ring.”
“I don’t think so,” Sofi signed. “We’ll find another way. But now, we have to get out of here, before that idiotic guard wakes up and finds you missing. He’ll raise the alarm, and then we’re done for before we’ve even begun.”
Swallowing her disappointment, Katerina nodded. Saints, she hated these cuffs, which had worn her wrists raw. But it wouldn’t matter much to get her hands free, only to wind up at the gallows anyway. “What’s the plan?”
“We’ll tell you as we go. Come on.” Ana jerked her head in the direction of the guard’s station. “Damien’s waiting for us with the horses, and Alexei’s got his own job to do. But first?—”
“Niko,” Katerina interrupted as they crept down the hall, past the bowls of burning herbs that floated in the fountains. “We are going to get him out, right?”
Ana sighed. “Yes, we are. Sofi and I know you well enough to know that you wouldn’t come with us, otherwise. But we’re going to have to be fast. Who knows when that moron will wake, and a half-dozen more like him.”
“A half-dozen…?” Katerina’s voice trailed off as they passed the first of the guards, lying sprawled on the stones, shirtless and blood trickling from his head. Then, a second, his pants around his knees, face-down in a puddle of pink-tinged drool, and a third, naked but for the weapon clutched in his hand, stinking of kvass from the bottle that had broken when he fell.
“Ana,” she said, her lips quirking despite herself, “did you seduce all of these idiots?”
“Seduce is a strong word. Watch it!” She grabbed for Katerina’s torn shirt and pulled her against the wall, head cocked as footsteps sounded somewhere off to the left. Katerina’s heart pounded—what would they do if they were attacked down here, with their magic bound?—but to her immense relief, the footsteps faded, tracking down a different corridor.
“Come on,” Sofi signed, and they followed her, past two more guards in various states of undress, and finally past the one who’d spat at Katerina and called her Shadow-lover. He looked particularly pathetic, his member hanging out of his pants and his body slumped atop a hand of cards, a leer on his lips and a livid bruise already forming on his temple.
“Good for you,” she signed to Sofi, who smirked.
Katerina didn’t have much time to gloat, though, because Sofi was tugging her onward, down a narrow corridor off to the left. “This way,” she signed.
With every step away from the wing where she’d been imprisoned, Katerina felt lighter, somehow, less…stifled. And then, like an invisible barrier had strained and burst, her magic flooded back into her, breaching the wall that had held it at bay. She gasped, and beside her, Ana and Sofi did the same.
“Thank the Saints,” Ana muttered, flames flaring at her fingertips before she clenched her hand into a fist, extinguishing them. “I don’t know how you stood it, Katerina. Those bastards.”
But Katerina was seeking Niko, sending her newfound energy down the bond they shared. Maybe now, she would sense him; she could talk to him, the way he’d somehow spoken those two words to her in the arena. Have faith. But where he should be, there was nothing. Just a barrier, and beyond it, that hollow, echoing emptiness.
He lived; that was all she could tell. But the emptiness had a different sense to it now, a foreboding tinge that sent a curl of dread through her. What did it mean?
She tried to tell herself not to worry. She would see him soon enough, and, somehow, they would make it out of here.
“How do you know where he is?” she signed to Sofi.
“Damien overheard Berezin talking about it. He got his hands on a map of the dungeons; I memorized it.” Her friend’s hands flew faster now. “But I don’t know what shape he’ll be in, Katerina. No matter how we find him, we can’t dally. Our plan depends on stealth and speed.”
Katerina wanted desperately to know what they had in mind. How did Sofi, Ana, and their Shadows intend to get past the full might of the Druzhina, the night before an execution? But Sofi and Ana were right; this was no time for explanations. Like so many of her questions, this one would have to wait.
