“Wait a moment,” I hissed. I pressed my face to the door and whispered, “Ivy?”
“Precious! Thank Atlantis!” he gasped on the other side.
“What are you guys doing in there?” I asked.
“The Warden had us brought here after we woke up from the noxite,” Alistair complained. “The nurses wanted us to pull out of the Darke Games because we don’t have any magic at the moment, but he wouldn’t allow it.”
“What?” I spat. I couldn’t believe this!
“Yeah! He’s still making us compete even though our magic isn’t back to normal!” Ivy screeched.
Ivy didn’t get scared, but even I could hear the fear in his tone. He was terrified about going out there without his magic to protect him and the others.
“I can get you guys out,” Kallie offered. “Just let me pick the lock.”
“Won’t do any good,” Chancey added glumly. “He put tracking cuffs on us. He’ll know if we break out the moment you open this door.”
“I bet Scarlet ditches us the moment she has a chance,” Alistair noted. “She’s definitely going to consider us deadweight.”
“Looks like we’re being thrown to the wolves whether we can defend ourselves or not,” Ivy said sourly. “And I thought I was too beautiful to die.”
“Hide, Ivy,” I insisted. “Stay out of sight until the Games are over, then they’ll let you back into the prison. You just have to stay alive until the other teams kill the monsters.”
“If one of them doesn’t eat us first,” Chancey grumbled.
“Where are you going?” Alistair asked. “Are you going to find Eddie?”
“We think we know where he is, but once we break him and the other Elves out, we have to figure out what to do with them,” I said nervously. There were so many steps to this plan, and so many things that could go wrong.
“If you find Eddie and can get him off Institute grounds, we’ll take care of them,” Alistair promised. “Thenwecan get the Elves off the island and to safety before the Darke Games are over.”
“That might actually work.” It was the best— and only— plan we had.
“You guys should escape the Institute, too, and come with us,” Chancey said. “We’ll meet up in the woods and book it outta this joint.”
My heart fell. “We can’t, guys.”
“Why the fuck not?” Ivy snarled.
“Because…” I didn’t have time to tell them about the keys right now. “It’s safer if you guys leave alone. But if we could go with you, we would. I promise.”
I pressed a hand to the door, as if I could feel my friends on the other side of it. “Stay safe, guys. We’ll do our best to make sure everyone comes out alive.”
“Good luck, Ava,” Ivy whispered.
I wanted to stay with them, but Charlie grabbed me and pulled me away. We couldn’t linger where we weren’t needed.
As we approached the door that led outside, Kallie said, “Even if we get them off the island, there’s going to be a manhunt for the Elves. We’re risking our own necks getting them out.”
“We have to give them a chance,” Charlie insisted. “I’m tired of the Warden pushing us around. Aren’t you?”
Kallie’s countenance was grim. I didn’t know what was going to happen to us either once all this went down— or what would happen if we got caught— but we’d promised to see this through. Loyalty meant something to every single one of us. In a place like the Institute, it was all you had.
Once we made it outside, we stuck to the wall and avoided the spotlights on the guard towers that surveyed the prison yard. The spotlights ceased to survey the area around the chapel or the graveyard next to it. On another night, I’d think it was strange, but now I knew why.
The cemetery had a couple hundred headstones on the property, and it was surrounded by a metal fence. Inmates never came here, because there were better things to do in the prison yard. I’d never been here myself. Most of the headstones were crumbling into decay, as if the guards didn’t bother to take care of them. Many headstones dated back to when the place was an asylum, but some were more recent. I noticed a couple graves from kids who’d died in the Darke Games last year by the entrance to the main gate.
After we’d slipped past the fence, Charlie knelt on the ground before a headstone and splayed his hand out.
