Hours after telling Keenan I’d get out of Blackcliff to meet him, I feel
like the world’s biggest fool. Tenth bell has come and gone. The
Commandant dismissed me and retreated to her room an hour ago. She
shouldn’t emerge until dawn, especially since I spiked her tea with kheb
leaf — a scentless, tasteless herb Pop used to help patients rest. Cook and
Izzi are asle ep in their quarters. The house is silent as a mausoleum.
And still I sit in my room, trying to concoct a way out of this place.
I can’t just walk past the gate guards so late at night. Bad things happen
to slaves foolish enough to do so. Besides which, the risk that the
Commandant will hear about my midnight wandering is too great.
But I can, I decide, create a distraction and sneak past the guards. I think
back to the flames that consumed my house on the night of the raid.
Nothing distracts better than fire.
So, armed with tinder, flint, and a striker, I slip out of my room. A loose
black scarf obscures my face, and my dress, high - necked and long - sleeved,
conceals both my slaves’ cuffs and the Commandant’ s mark, still scabbed
and painful.
The servants’ corridor is empty. I move silently to the wooden gate
leading to Blackcliff’s grounds and ease it open.
It squeals louder than a gutted pig.
I grimace and scurry back to my quarters, waiting for someone to come
investigate the noise. When no one does, I cre ep out of my room —
“Laia? Where are you going?”
I jump and drop the flint and striker to the ground, barely ke eping hold
of the tinder.
“Bleeding skies, Izzi!”
“Sorry!” She picks up the flint and striker, b rown eyes widening when
she realizes what they are. “You’re trying to sneak out.”
“Am not,” I say, but she gives me a look that makes me fidget. “Fine, I
am, but — ”
“I . . . could help you,” she whispers. “I know a way out of the school
that even the legionnaires don’t patrol.”
“It’s too dangerous, Izzi.”
“Right. Of course.” She retreats but then stops, small hands twisting
together.
“If — if you were planning to set a fire and sneak through the front gate
while the guards are distracted, it won’t work. The le gionnaires will send
the auxes to deal with the fire. They never leave a gate unattended. Never.”
As soon as she says it, I know she’s right. I should have realized that fact
myself. “Can you tell me about this way out?” I ask her.
“It’s a hidden trail,” she says. “A rock path and a scanty one at that. I’m
sorry, but I’d have to show you — which means I’d have to come with you. I
don’t mind. It’s what a — a friend would do.” She says the word friend like
it’s a secret she wishes she knew. “I’m not saying that w e’re friends,” she
continues in a rush. “I mean — I don’t know. I’ve never really had . . . ”
A friend. She’s about to say it, but she looks away, embarrassed.
“I’m to meet with my handler, Izzi. If you come and the Commandant
catches you — ”
“She’ll punish me. Maybe kill me. I know. But she might do that anyway
if I forget to dust her room or if I look her in the eye. Living with the
Commandant is like living with the Reaper. And anyway, do you really
have a choice? I mean” — she looks almost apologetic — “how el se are you
planning to get out of here?”
Good point. I don’t want her to get hurt. I lost Zara to the Martials a year
ago. I can’t bear the thought of another friend suffering at their hands.
But I don’t want Darin to die either. Every second I waste is a second he
is rotting in prison. And it’s not as if I’m forcing her into this. Izzi wants to
help. A host of what - ifs parade through my head. I silence them. For Darin.
“All right,” I say to Izzi. “This hidden trail — where does it let out?”
“The docks. Is that where you’re going?”
I shake my head. “I have to get into the Scholars’ Quarter for the Moon
Festival. But I can make my way there from the docks.”
Izzi nods. “This way, Laia.”
Please don’t let her get hurt. She ducks into her room for a cloak, then
takes my hand and pulls me to the back of the house.