I sneak a peek at three guards as they pass us, but they’re not looking at me. Hana has kept her hood down and her cape open to draw their attention. It works. They’re too busy staring at her red lips, long lashes, and curves to even glance my way.
A heady high fills me. We might actually make it out of here.
Hana takes a dizzying sequence of turns, and it seems like we’re constantly walking uphill, but it could be that I haven’t walked this much in weeks. My calves burn; my thighs feel like lead pipes. I’ve exercised in my cell, but this is different. I can’t imagine how weak I’d be if Hana hadn’t been feeding me or if I’d been chained.
Eventually, we find ourselves at a heavy iron door at the end of a hall. Two guards stand to either side of it, but they wear a different uniform. They are palace guards, not prison ones.
Hana glances at me, telling me to be prepared. This must be the other entrance she mentioned. And it must lead directly into Qali.
I take a deep breath and keep my stance loose. I know I can kill if it comes down to it, but I hope it doesn’t because palace guards are far more lethal than I am.
“Identification,” one of the guards says. He’s tall but young, with brown hair and eyes.
Hana smiles slowly, flirtatiously. “You don’t know me, Jimi?”
She adjusts her cape to show off more of her body. Both guards notice, but discreetly. They are more professional than the prison guards.
“I was talking to him,” Jimi says, gesturing to me.
I brace myself.
She looks back at me, waiting. “Well?”
I pat my jacket and my pockets. Unsurprisingly, I don’t have any papers on me. I don’t know how Hana even had the time to steal the uniform.
“You don’t have it?” she asks.
I give her a hapless shrug.
She draws a long-suffering breath and rolls her eyes. “The gods have cursed me, Jimi. Just sign him out, please. I need to get the smell of this place off me.”
He frowns. “You know I need to see his identification, Z.”
“A little difficult when he is a new guard who forgot it.” She tosses me a withering look.
“I will need to get the prison supervisor,” Jimi says.
“Go ahead.” She steps up to the other palace guard, who has been eyeing her. Hana engages him in some small talk. He has a mustache and a jaw that’s nearly square. He also has fifty pounds on me.
I’m not certain what I should be doing while I wait, so I stand here staring into space.
Jimi opens the first set of bolts to the door with his key. Then he looks at the other guard. “Ral.”
Ral stops flirting with Hana for just long enough to unlock the second set of bolts with a different key.
But there is still a third set.
Jimi turns and bangs on a windowed door that faces the exit. It blends so well I hadn’t even noticed it before now, but it looks like a door to an office.
“Captain,” he says loudly. “Identification check.”
A minute later, an older man lumbers out of the doorway. He’s incredibly tall, with salt-and-pepper hair and a gray mustache. It seems like he just woke from a nap. “What is the issue?”
“A new guard and Zahara leaving, but he forgot his identification,” Jimi says.
“And I’m in desperate need of a bath,” she adds with a slow smile. Her voice drips with suggestion.
The captain looks Hana up and down and then nudges Jimi. “I suppose I can overlook it just this once.”
