by Halie Fewkes
I was glad that those who saw us had enough sense not to shout and give our presence away to the world, but the hope that lit their eyes nearly tore a hole through me.
The five kids in Leaf’s cell were still asleep when we reached them and Robbiel pulled a set of long black pins from his bag to pick the lock.
The door creaked on its hinges as it swung open and woke all five in a frightened startle. Leaf was the first to rub his eyes and realize the Escalis weren’t dragging them out of the cell.
“Allie?” he whispered, glancing at the others as though worried he might be dreaming.
The inefficiencies of the Human language became suddenly apparent. There weren’t any appropriate words for this situation. I’m sorry? I’ve missed you? I’m so glad to see you’re just injured and not dead?
I sank to set my knees and palms on the rock floor, and Leaf took a careful step toward me, then abandoned all caution. He wrapped frail arms around my neck, so loose I could barely feel the embrace, but with more love and trust than the tightest hug of a family member.
“I told them I had friends,” Leaf said as I tried to steady him with my own arms, pressing my cheek to the side of his red hair. “I said you’d find us. But how are you going to rescue everyone with just three people?”
“We’re going to tell everyone on the outside where to find you,” I told him. The idea of not escaping tonight paused Leaf’s breath, and I leaned back to see his eyes again, now full of fear. “But for tonight, I brought a friend who can help you.”
Robbiel knelt on cue and whispered, “Hi there.”
Leaf blinked at him several times, looked to me for reassurance, and still hesitated before he softly replied, “Hey.”
“This is my friend,” I assured Leaf, and Robbiel gave him a smile both friendly and harmless.
“I’m Robbiel. Do you think I could see your arms? They look like they hurt.”
Leaf gave a shy nod and reluctantly lifted his hands, palms up, to reveal the hideous gashes. Robbiel gently grabbed both of his arms and said, “You must be pretty tough,” as he turned them over to reveal multiple blood-crusted bites. “These bites would have me crying for days.”
I saw a proud smile at the edge of Leaf’s mouth before the kid with shaggy blond hair and bloodied arms said, “He didn’t deserve those bites. We’re the ones breaking the dishes.”
“And spitting in the Escalis’ food,” said the last of the three bearing injuries, swiping his overgrown black hair from his eyes. “We didn’t stop until they went after Leaf.”
“Well, the good news is, you can keep the arms,” Robbiel said. “We do have to clean and wrap them though. It might hurt a little.”
Leaf nodded as Robbiel dug through his pack for a grey glass bottle and a roll of white cloth.
The last boy hadn’t taken his gaze off me to so much as blink, and a sense of unease shook me as I returned his stare. His eyes were a cross between green and brown and not particularly striking, but something about them froze the breath in my chest and made me feel anxious to the point of dizziness.
“Who are you?” he asked in a flat whisper that made the hairs on my neck prickle. I didn’t know him, but I recognized him.
“Ratuan?” The name rolled off my tongue, and I pressed my knuckles to my mouth in confusion.
Everybody in the room sensed the tension with this unknown kid, and Robbiel took the opportunity to pour something onto Leaf’s arms, causing him to shriek and lurch back against me. Leaf kept his arms out to endure the worst of the torture and I looked back to Archie, pretending I couldn’t handle the sight of gore.
Archie’s slight squint and head tilt asked me what was going on, and I returned his frown with a tiny shake of my head to say, I have no idea who he is. I knew that didn’t make sense when I knew the boy’s name, but Archie’s tiny nod meant we’d talk about it later.
The kids down the hallway began shouting, and I picked out the words, “You’ve got one coming!”
“There’s an Escali coming,” Leaf said, choking on his words. “Where are you going to hide?”
Archie, Robbiel, and I exchanged worried glances, knowing nothing good could come from an Escali encounter in front of a whole hall of Human kids.
“Are you kidding me?” exclaimed Karissa as she rounded the corner and saw the three of us with the door to the cell open. Archie was the quickest of us to respond, and pulled a knife from his side as though ready for her to jump us. “I’ve spent the last three months complaining that I missed fixing people up, and you come down here without me?!”
I opened my arms, palms up, to silently exclaim, we can’t answer you. She hadn’t thought ahead to cover the spikes on her elbows, and wasn’t speaking Human either.
I also stood and pulled one of my short swords from my side. “Are you both shanking psychotic?” Karissa demanded.
Archie had the quickest idea and said to me, “It’s fine. Robbiel is a mind mage. He can keep her from attacking us.”
I never would have guessed it was a lie if I didn’t belong to the group.
Robbiel continued wrapping Leaf’s arms, and said, “We’ll be fine. She won’t even remember seeing us.”
Karissa flung her gaze up to the ceiling in irritated disgust, then said, “I will kill every,” she glared at Archie, “single,” she glared at me, “One of you.” She glared at Robbiel last and with the most venom, as though he had committed the worst betrayal imaginable. Robbiel frowned back, as if to ask what he was supposed to do, and Karissa demanded, “Was it infected? Did you sanitize your tools? Did he need stitches? Has he lost much blood? Is he in shock?”
Leaf looked like he might go into shock when Karissa took another step toward him, and that seemed to be the only thing that convinced her to rethink her strategy.
“Fine,” she said, resigned to let her anger out in one large breath. “When the three of you get out of here, I want every detail.”
She looked longingly at the injury one more time, then turned to go.
One of the other boys with bites down his arm looked at Robbiel and said, “You’re really good. At the mind stuff and the medicine.”
“It still doesn’t explain who any of you are,” Ratuan said. The question was mostly aimed at me.
“We’re friends,” I said. “And we’re here to help make a plan.” This seemed to intrigue them. “We also need to ask your help,” I said, making eye contact with all five kids. “Do any of you know where our Epic is?”
Ratuan widened his eyes. “The Escalis got our Epic?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that without making everything seem even more hopeless, but they understood that the following silence meant yes.
Ratuan said, “He’s not down here.”
“Are you positive?” I asked.
“Yes, because our group is the one planning the escape,” Leaf said. “Eme’s been keeping track of how many mages we have.” Leaf turned to the one girl. “Nobody’s shown a sign of more than one power, have they?” The girl silently shook her head.
“We need help from the outside too,” Ratuan said. “But we don’t have any reason to trust you.”
“We’re the only ones down here offering help,” I said with a sad smile. “Your options are pretty limited, buddy.”
“That’s not a reason to trust you,” Ratuan replied. I had to admit, I admired his style. “What we need is information. How to get out of here, how many Escalis will be in our way, where to go. We need a map. Can you get us that?”
“We’ll see what we can do,” Archie said as Robbiel let go of Leaf’s arms and took a step back.
“I want to see yours too,” Robbiel said to the other boys with bite marks. “Is anybody else down here hurt?”
Each of the kids closed their mouths and turned to Ratuan, who hesitated. “We’ve got a few injuries. They’re in the cells at the very bottom where we take care of the babies and toddlers. We were trying to keep them as far from the Escalis as we could.”
I studied Ratuan before asking, “You’ve organized who’s staying where down here?”
Several kids, including the quiet girl and the boys listening intently from across the hall, giggled at my question.
“Yes,” Ratuan said, barely trying to fake humility when he was clearly very proud. “We’ve put a little thought into who’s staying where.”
Chapter Ten
Ebby
Ebby wrapped her small hands around two thick iron bars and gaped past them to see four boys and one girl, huddled in a tight circle and completely absorbed in a whispered conversation. White strips of cloth circled three of the boys’ forearms, one of whom had the strangest reddish-orange hair she had ever seen.
“Ratuan?” The word escaped Ebby’s mouth as a puff of air.
Ratuan whipped around and froze as the other four fell silent. She could feel his confusion and a flood of hope welling up, which he tried to suppress because this was too absurd to believe.
Ratuan glanced all around before meeting her eyes, nearly on the brink of a panic attack. “Ebby?”
Ebby forgot how to speak and screamed with delight instead, ghosting herself through the bars to throw her arms around Ratuan. “It’s me!” she exclaimed. “It’s me, it’s me, it’s me.”
Ratuan took two sharp breaths as uncontained hope and relief threatened to spill out his ears. “You can’t be here,” he said, his voice cracking as his trembling worsened. “I looked. I looked a hundred times. I learned the name of every kid in these caves, and you weren’t here!” But he suddenly hugged her back in that lung crushing way she had missed so sorely.
“They’ve been keeping me separate,” Ebby said, tightening her grip as joyful tears streamed from her eyes. “I have so much to t-tell you. So much has ha-happened.”
Crying overrode her ability to speak, and Ratuan had even less to say since he was surrendering to certain delusion.
Can you hear me? she asked in his head.
Ratuan jerked his head back. “What the—”
I’m the new Epic. I’m Sir Avery’s daughter. That’s why the Escalis took me. That’s why they’ve been keeping me separate.
Now Ratuan took a step back. “Girls... can’t be Epics,” he said, and the other four kids gaped at Ebby in sudden disbelief.
“It’s not that girls can’t, it’s just n-never happened before,” Ebby said, wiping her cheeks as she gathered her courage. “But you just saw me walk through those bars. You just heard me in your head. Look at this,” she held both hands out and conjured a flame in one while the other palm spat a fountain of green sparks. “I can freeze things, shoot lightning bolts... I can levitate your shoe! I can do all of it.”
Ebby was struck with a sudden fear that hadn’t occurred to her. What if Ratuan wouldn’t like her anymore? What if he didn’t want to be best friends with an Epic?
Ratuan just stood flabbergasted. It was the smaller boy with the orange hair who asked, “What are you doing here?”
“He’s right, you shouldn’t be here,” said the boy with black hair falling into his eyes. His name was Eric, and the other boy with shaggy blond hair was Steph. Every young girl in Dincara with a set of eyes knew these two boys, though they usually had tans from helping their fathers out on the boats. “If you’re an Epic, can’t you just escape?”
“I can’t,” Ebby shook her head tearfully, afraid because Ratuan still hadn’t spoken. “Prince Avalask is the one keeping me here, and he’s got this horrible son named Vack—”
Ratuan interrupted, “His son? You’ve met the Escalis’ new Epic?”
“Yes, and he’s horrible!” Ebby said, stamping a foot on the ground at the injustice of it all. “He’s mean and vile, he bites...”
And so began the very long story of all that had happened since she’d been torn away from Ratuan. The others asked questions and clung to her every answer. They introduced themselves as they laughed, cried, and planned. At the end of it all, Ebby found herself in the middle of a kid-pile for the night. Judging by the other cells around them, that was their normal way to sleep and keep warm with no blankets in sight.
She faced Ratuan in the middle of the huddle, and he’d entwined his fingers with hers, filling her with a sense of warmth and hope she hadn’t felt since the last time she’d held his hand. “I looked for you too,” Ebby whispered as everybody else fell asleep. “I searched Tabriel Vale every day and never found you.”
“Nobody in Tabriel Vale would help me,” Ratuan said. “I told them you were alive, and they just tried to put me in the orphanage. So I left for Dincara to find Reso and Sembla. I thought they might know something.”
“What did they say?” Ebby asked.
“I never found them,” Ratuan replied, squeezing her hand. “The Escalis attacked before I could, and Dincara sent every kid in the city to take refuge in Kellington. But the Escalis caught us before we ever got close.”
Ebby clenched her jaw tightly because it was her fault Ratuan was here. He could have easily stayed in Tabriel Vale, but she’d needed him and he’d come to find her. And even if it was wrong and selfish, she was incredibly grateful to have him, a friend in the nightmare.
“You remember the girl we found before the Escalis got you?” Ratuan whispered, even more softly. “That Allie girl you’ve talked about before?” Ebby nodded. “She was here just a few hours ago. She’s looking for you.”
Ebby scrunched her eyebrows and breathed, “What?” That was one unsolved mystery she hadn’t thought about in a while. “Do you think she’s trying to rescue me?”
“She seems like she is,” Ratuan said. “She said she wanted to get us all out of here. She brought two others with her, and they bandaged everyone up before they left.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, but there’s something strange about her, Ebby. I don’t trust her.”
“I don’t know if we have a choice,” Ebby said as a brilliant idea came to mind. “But I can listen to her thoughts if she comes back. I can figure out who she is.”
Can you hear how much I’ve missed you? Ratuan thought very loudly.
Ebby laughed. “No need to break my ears over it,” she said. “But yes. And I can still say I’ve missed you more.”
Ebby slept well for the first time since her old life had been ripped away. There was something wonderfully comfortable about being warm, feeling wanted, and the anonymity that came with a city’s-worth of other kids around her. Small comforts like these made the cruel world livable.
Several peaceful hours sank in before Ebby woke to a voice that caused her heart to sink into the floor. “What are you doing?” Vack demanded from outside the cell, startling everybody around them.
Ebby blinked a few times before Ratuan whispered, “Don’t worry about him,” and he moved slightly closer to Vack, protecting her. “They know we can’t understand them.”
Ebby nodded and thought back to Vack, I’m not doing anything.
It’s nearly morning! My father is going to be back soon to teach us. You don’t want him to find you down here.
I belong down here, Vack. The only thing in my life that matters is down here.
Vack rolled his eyes up at the ceiling. Well don’t be an idiot about it. We’ll both be in trouble if you don’t show up to practice, and you won’t be able to come back here at all. Stand up so I can jump us out.
Ebby crossed her arms and huffed out a sigh. She didn’t want Prince Avalask to prevent her coming back. Can you at least make it look like we’re still enemies? I don’t want my friends to see me get up and leave with you.
“Oh, gladly, Tear-salt,” Vack said, stepping through the thick iron bars.
“Hey, whoa, what is he doing?” Leaf exclaimed, waking everyone in the cells around them.
Vack grabbed Ebby by the arm, hauling her to her feet, and the other four kids immediately latched onto her clothes to yank her back.
Ratuan was the one who leapt straight onto Vack, trying to claw at his face and st
rangle him. “Get away from her! Get OFF!”
The boys across the hall began shouting, “Leave them alone!” along with “Get out of there,” and “You’re dead!” Vack’s grip on her arm become searing hot, enough to melt a handprint into her flesh if she wasn’t able to freeze her arm into a block of ice, but Ratuan still tried to tear Vack apart, screaming like a demented animal as red blisters boiled up beneath his skin.
“VACK! STOP IT!” Ebby screamed, lunging forward to slam Vack into the iron bars. Vack flung Ratuan away with one hand, brutally reminding Ebby of the day Sav had thrown Ratuan into the dirt and nearly killed him. Ratuan hit the wall this time and immediately rebounded to charge again.
But Vack had already yanked Ebby out of everyone’s grasp, straight through the bars, and into the tunnel where shouting came from every side. New words were coming through the clamor now as chaos erupted.
“He just used magic!”
“He’s the Epic! He’s the new royal Epic!”
“Get a good look at him!”
Ebby’s ragged screams were the loudest of them all. “You don’t hurt my friends! Don’t you ever touch my friends!”
Ebby threw herself into Vack with raging, loathing fury, intent on tearing into him, but Vack caught her and used the momentum to jump them both into the air. Seconds later, they hurtled into Ebby’s black glass room and landed in a heap.
Ebby immediately scrambled to her feet, lowered her shoulder, and crashed her whole body into him as he regained his footing, pulling her gloves off in frenzied haste.
“What is wrong with you?” Vack shouted as she screamed again and tried to get her fingers around his throat. Vack crushed her shoulders and hurled her sideways into the obsidian wall. The haunting squeak of splintering glass filled the entire room as Ebby ghosted herself straight through Vack and turned to shoot a pillar of fire at him. Vack caught the entirety of the flames before they reached him, and he reshaped them into a gigantic fireball between his hands.
“You really want to play this game with me?” Vack asked as Ebby eyed the swirling ball of death he could easily retarget.