“Not without proof. And what evidence does he have? He can search our grounds all he wants. He’s not going to realize the prince is already at the palace, jumping around his own garden.” He smiled. “Sweet poetic justice.”
He turned to me. “And to tidy things up, you’ll be next. I just have to whip up another batch. I wasn’t expecting to run two experiments today.”
Thomas hopped off the chair onto the floor. Lee leapt, landing atop, holding the frog in his hands. “No, you don’t,” he muttered. He deposited Thom into a small cage.
He locked the cage, then crossed to the door. “The irony—the amount of frogs and rats that man went through trying to perfect his little cure.” He glanced at me. “I’d release your binding, but after your little stunt earlier, I don’t exactly trust you. I hope you understand.” With a nod, he left me alone with Thomas, whose tongue slipped between the bars to capture a fly.
“That’s disgusting.”
He croaked.
Oh spirits. Oh saints.
When the door’s lock finally clicked, I closed my eyes. I could feel Thomas’s frog eyes boring into me, but now was not the time. I needed to focus.
I want to be free. To unwind the ropes, reverse the binding.
I flexed my fingers. Opening and closing them.
I want to be free.
The rope binding me fell, my hands and legs going slack. I opened my eyes. The rope lay on the floor in a heap of individual strands, unmade entirely.
My lips curved.
I rushed over to Thomas. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of here.” He croaked once more in response. The lock was an easy spell, breaking with the snap of my fingers. I cradled Thomas’s slimy body to my chest. My pulse thundered in my ears.
“Ew,” I murmured. “Please forgive me.”
He ribbeted, and I gave a breathy chuckle despite myself.
“I can imagine you trying to tell me what to do just now,” I told him as I walked over to a window, looking out at the moat that surrounded Blackwood Manor. “But you haven’t seen me in a long time, Thom.” I adjusted my dress and smoothed my hair. I grabbed the leftover metal syringe from the table. “And I’ve become stronger, better, like you told me I would.” I used all my strength to smash it against the window. A small splintering appeared in the glass. I smashed it again, the pane shattering. A trickle of blood ran down my arm.
Thom’s croak rose an octave.
“And the good thing about privileged idiots like Lee,” I said,sweeping glass from the sill, “is that they always underestimate the people they see as less than themselves.” With a deep breath, I called the water up to meet the windowsill. The golden thread appeared before me, elusive and thin from a long evening. I wrapped my mind’s fingers around it with all my might.
I would need every inch of strength I had.
I hauled myself out the window, holding Thom’s slimy skin against the front of my gown. The water carried us over, kissing my skin and cooling my fears. It dropped us off on the other side of the moat, my wet slippers touching the now-soaked grass.
“Someone probably saw that,” I said. “So we really ought to run.”
And we did.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
My feet pounded against the dirt, the spring wind roaring against my ears. I hadn’t heard any screams of alarm yet, which was a relief, but that wouldn’t last forever. Thomas’s amphibious skin seeped through my dress, damp and slimy.
In the distance, a coach was being readied: a footman cleaned the carriage, and a driver checked his horses’ reins.
I needed a distraction. I begged the air to move, to make a scene. A tree nearby groaned, wobbling, fighting against my desires, my ambition.
You will fall, I told it, and the tree toppled. A thud shook the ground, branches sprawled out across the manor lawn. The coachman and footman ran to examine the damage, just as a guard shouted about escaped prisoners.
I beseeched the wind to speed me along as I hopped into the carriage’s box seat. I took the reins. Behind me, the coachman yelled, his voice stolen by the wind as I prompted the horses to move, to run, to get out. We were off, dirt flying from the horses’ hooves. Thomas tucked himself into my lap as screams were muffled by the distance.
We careened down the lane, the lawn flying past. I clutched thereins tightly. When I looked back, Lee was little more than a blur of frantic movement and shouted orders. A groom rushed over to him with a large stallion at his side.
