He looks at me in shock, and then as quickly as I can, I catch him up on everything that’s happened since we parted ways back at the palace in the Onyx Quarter.
“I told you,” Fly says. “I told you not to trust the Empress. I had a funny feeling about it and you didn’t listen.”
“I didn’t have any choice though did I, Fly? I had to find Fox.”
“And where is the Professor?”
“He’s here,” I say. “Sleeping in his bedroom.”
“Does he know you’re here with me?”
I shake my head.
Fly groans. “So he’ll be the one to kill me.”
“No one’s going to kill you,” I say. “I can heal it.”
I stride over to his clouded mirror – cheap looking compared to the highly polished, well-crafted mirrors I saw hanging in the palace. A vicious red mark streaks across the brow of my cheekbone. I lift my fingers to my face, let my light dance across my skin, and heal away all the damaged tissue. Then I spin back to Fly.
“See? Good as new.”
He walks toward me, tilting my head up to his gaze and humming with approval. “Impressive,” he says. “And useful.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So you’re an outlaw now?” Fly asks me.
“Seems so.”
“And if you’re in my room, that makes me an accessory to an outlaw – one who’s been branded a traitor to the realm.”
“You got a problem with that?” I ask him.
“No,” he says, grinning. “I always wanted to be badass, and now it seems I am. So what’s your plan?”
“My plan?” I ask.
“Oh, come on, Briony. You always have a plan.”
“Beyond rescuing the Princes from the Black Tower, I don’t know,” I say.
“Thewhat?” Fly cries.
But I get the sense he heard me the first time. “That’s where they’ve been taken. At least that’s where we think they’ve been taken.”
“If the Empress has accused them of being traitors, then yes, that is where they are. But Briony?—”
“I know,” I interrupt. “No one has escaped successfully from the Black Tower in three hundred years. Yadda yadda yadda.”
“Nobody’s had a dragon for three hundred years,” Fly points out. “Or been able to wield light.”
“Exactly,” I say, pleased with my friend’s optimism. “But I figure there must be a way in and out. There always is, right?”
Fly shrugs, skeptical. “I’m assuming you think Clare can help you with that little puzzle?”
“Clare and the library?”
“So you want me to go find her?” Fly asks.
