"That thing is tiny. I'm not even sure I can fit through it. What is it, an escape hatch?"
Remember, this was a library, or at least I think it was. They didn't worry about dragons and prisoners. I think it used to be the book drop off, but really, does it matter? That's the only place that's not warded with some pretty nasty magic. All it has is an alarm, but just to surprise anyone trying to spring their friends out. It's not a magical alarm. Just a regular, human-built alarm system.
"So how am I supposed to get in without alerting every guard in the building? My sneaky magic doesn't work against devices like that, or even against magic defenses. It just keeps people from seeing me, and even then, it only works most of the time."
Hawking chuckled in her mind. Don't sell yourself short, kid. It only fails when you're not paying attention, and I imagine just knowing they'll probably kill you or worse if you get caught, well, it'll keep you focused.
"Very funny. Quit laughing and tell me how to get in."
Very well. It's actually easy. Walk up to the door, figure out how to get inside without activating the alarm, and then go inside.
Bells huffed in frustration. That was not helpful. "How on Earth am I supposed to get in without activating it? How many times do I need to ask you?"
Do I have to do everything myself? Listen, the sensors are activated by heat, vibration, and motion. Do you know anything that could block a heat sensor, dampen your vibrations, and hide you from being detected by the motion sensors?
An idea came to her, but it seemed far-fetched. She didn't have any other ideas, so she would have to give it a try. Hawking certainly wasn't being very helpful.
She sprinted from shadow to shadow, relying on her fae abilities to keep her from being spotted by the guards on the roof. There were at least four people up there, two with human rifles and two with wands. She didn't want to get hit by either.
She quickly made her way to the small door. The building was constructed of cinderblocks, and the door was set in a steel frame and looked like sheet-metal. There was no knob, just a round lock that would take a circular key. Well, that wouldn't slow her down much. The humans hadn't once called the fae "tricksters" for no reason...
Bells reached into a small pouch hanging from her belt and withdrew a tiny round, brown seed which she tucked that into a crack in the pavement by the door. She held her hand palm down over the crack and closed her eyes, guiding energy from her heart and mind out through her arm, where it then radiated out from her palm. With impossible speed, a tiny green growth shot upward. The plant was more than happy to help her since she had planted it and helped it grow; it sent a few thin tendrils off its main growth into the lock. The plant, now half the size of Bells herself, rustled for a moment and then she heard the distinctive click of the mechanism unlocking. Released from the lock, the door swung open an inch.
"Thanks, little green friend," she said to the plant, and felt its gratitude. Plants were simple, but if she concentrated hard enough, she could sense their primitive feelings—hunger, pain, joy, and so on.
She opened the door all the way and peered inside. It might have once been some sort of a dumbwaiter, a chute going down to the basement. She opened up her senses and "saw" the alarm trip beams. There was one across the doorway and one across the chute. There would probably be one at the bottom, too.
One plant would be hard-pressed to handle that. Bells took out a handful of seeds and carefully placed them in different cracks, then helped them all to grow. She asked them to line all four walls of the chute, and to pad the bottom. The plants were at ambient air temperature, so thermal sensors wouldn't go off. The plants could also keep the chute from vibrating when she climbed in.
After a couple minutes, the plants finished doing what she asked and no alarms had gone off. She took a deep gulp of air and, holding her breath, slid in feet-first, pulling the door closed behind her, and allowed herself to slide down.
She landed softly on a mat of vines and leaves at the bottom and froze, listening and looking. Everything was dark, but that was no problem for a Pure. While no one had better eyesight at night than dragons, any Pure could see in the dark to some degree. She also had her fae senses, and she sent them outward, exploring the building as best she could from the basement.
She definitely picked the right way in, it turned out, because she sensed the main floor was full of Pures of all types—and all armed. The upper floor was for offices much larger than the ones on the main floor, probably the facility commanders and VIPs.
But in the basement, she sensed no weapons of any type, just dragons and elves, weres and trolls, all stuffed into cells that were too small to even lie down in. Cells lined all the basement walls, and she could feel magic coursing through the walls and bars.
At first, she thought that magic was for more alarms, but as she examined the energy to try to find a way to disable them, she realized they weren't alarms at all. Rather, those cells would self-regenerate if they were damaged. As fast as a troll could try to dig through a wall, it would heal. There was no way to break out—one had to be let out.
Bells smiled. She intended to do just that.
A voice echoed in her mind, but it wasn't Hawking's. It was Jaekob! Are you really here? How foolish could you be? I gave you more credit than this. I thought you would do the smart thing and run. Why are you here?
Under her voice, she muttered, "I'm here to save you, dummy. What's the point of running? Either the fungus or the sword will find everyone eventually unless we do something about it. I can't stop it on my own, so I guess that means I have to break you out."
The mental equivalent of waves of laughter washed through her, and she caught his thought: So typical of Bells. She tried to latch onto that thought, tried to hear more of his personal, unintentional thoughts, but it faded out and was gone before she could grab it.
We only have ten minutes before the guards' next round. Unless you want to join me in here, I suggest you get on with helping me to join you out there.
He had a point. Yes, but how was she going to do it?
Bells' mind raced. She had to figure out how to let Jaekob and Dawning out, but then also how to get them out of the building undetected. It felt overwhelming. Too much could go wrong. Dawning could get out by climbing the plants the way she had come in, but those same plants wouldn't likely help Jaekob. The fae alone were beloved by plants. He was also much bigger than the fae, who averaged only five feet tall. At twice her own weight or more, he would tear the plants away from their weak grip.
But it was now or never—she wouldn't get another shot at saving them. Maybe she should just deal with one issue at a time to make it seem more manageable; she only had to get out of the room she was in.
It had once been a storage room and the Pures hadn't bothered to convert it to some other purpose. Two rows of empty metal shelves had been left bolted in. The dumbwaiter turned out to be a big vent that drew cool air into the basement. That meant there would be another vent on the other side of the building which rose up higher to allow warm air to rise and escape. Together, the vents kept fresh air circulating constantly. It also meant there was a second exit in a pinch. Good to know.
The door was set in the center of the room's far wall. It had only a simple lock on the knob, no deadbolt. She had learned from sending her senses out that on the other side was one huge room, and it was where the prison cells had been constructed. It had to be a secret prison, she realized, or they'd have used an old school or some other secure building, not a little library. But libraries were built strong, too, and neither Pures nor hungry humans would bother with them.
She opened the door easily enough and peered through, squinting against the light from fluorescent bulbs glowing across the entire length of the room down the center of the ceiling. She didn't expect to see any guards there since she hadn't detected any, but it paid to double-check with her own eyes. Determining it was all clear, she stepped through the doorway and into a narro
w alcove. It looked like it had been the humans' break room, with a miniature kitchen and two round tables surrounded by chairs.
The Pures had put in the magic prison cells along both long walls. She counted ten on each side. The shorter wall at the far side had a heavy-looking door set in the middle. Somewhere in those cells were Jaekob and Dawning. She didn't think the Pures would have set up a noise-sensitive alarm with their magic, since the prisoners themselves would make noise continually, but some irrational fear kept her from calling out for her friends. Instead, she crept as quietly as she could down the center of the room, looking at the cells on both sides as she went. She saw a couple elves and a troll in the first few cells, but no one she knew. They seemed to be asleep. She kept going.
Most of the other cells were empty, until she got to the sixth ones down. Her heart sped to racing as she realized Jaekob was in one and Dawning was in the cell opposite him. Both stood at the bars, their hands wrapped around them as they looked out.
Jaekob grinned when he saw her, and she couldn't help smiling back. It's about time you got here. What kept you?
She whispered back, "Breaking into a prison is easier than I thought, but I still couldn't just walk in. I found a way in, though I don't think it'll work to get you out."
"Why not?" Dawning asked.
"It's hard to explain, but I used plant magic to get in without tripping alarms. You and I can probably get out just fine, but Jaekob is too big. If we go out the way I came in, he'll set off the alarms."
Jaekob said, "Let’s worry about one thing at a time. First, you have to get us out of the cells. We can't dig or blast our way out, and I don't think your plant magic is going to get us out, either."
Bells stifled a laugh, covering her mouth with her hands. She looked around for some sort of control unit to open the doors but saw nothing. Each of the doors had a big padlock on them, though. They might have been alarmed, so she closed her eyes and focused her senses on the locks. They were enchanted, she saw, but the energy was brown and dun-colored. Her best guess was that they had been made unbreakable, but there was no way they were alarmed.
She said, "The locks have been reinforced, but there's no alarms. I can use plants to pick the locks, just wait a minute."
Jaekob's eyes went wide, making Bells grin as she opened her seed pouch. There was a lot about fae he didn't know.
Dawning said, "No, that won't work. When the guards come down, it's pretty easy to see that one of the keys on their key ring has the same enchantment as the locks. I'm pretty sure that the locks will only open with the right key."
Jaekob frowned. "Now you tell us? That would've been good to know before she came down here and risked herself trying to rescue us. Bells, you need to get out of here."
Her heart plummeted into her stomach. "No, there's no way I'm leaving you. I just found you."
"Don't argue, you have to—"
Dawning interrupted, "There's another way. The lock might not be breakable, but did you see any enchantments on the iron bars?"
Bells paused and cocked her head as she thought back. No, she hadn't. Why hadn't she noticed that before? She'd been so focused on the lock that it hadn't even occurred to her. "I don't know why I didn't think of that."
"Think of what?” Jaekob asked. “Seriously, Bells, you need to leave while you still can. We'll figure a way out, I promise."
Dawning shook his head. "No we won't. They're going to execute us long before we can figure out how to escape on our own. The last thing in the world they want is for us to get out and start telling stories about how we were kidnapped by Pures, much less revealing this secret prison of theirs. I think the only reason they bring people here is when they don't want anyone to know they've been taken, and don't plan on ever letting them out alive."
Bells nodded. "Yeah, that's true. Anyway, I don't think there's a noise alarm in here, but what I'm about to do is going to be plenty loud anyway."
Jaekob's voice sounded suddenly high-pitched when he replied, "What you have planned? Should I cover my head?"
Dawning laughed. "Go ahead, Bells. I hope you brought oak."
She shook her head. She hadn't even thought to do that, but she did have pine. It would have to do. She fished two seeds out of her pouch and tucked one between the floor and bottom bar on the door of each cell, then stepped back. "You might want to cover yourselves with your mattresses. I don't know what this is going to do."
Jaekob snarled, "That doesn't make me feel very confident."
She heard them move their mattress around, and when the scuffling sounds stopped, she closed her eyes and began to talk to the plants, murmuring under her breath. For half a minute, nothing happened, though she could sense the plants' irritation and discomfort.
Frustrated, she focused on pouring as much magic as she could into the seedlings, even holding out her hands to point at both seeds, helping to channel her energy more efficiently. All she could do then was wait as the seconds ticked by.
As Bells waited, practically holding her breath to see whether her plan would work, she saw a bright, neon-blue orb of light shoot from between the bars of another cell farther down. It zipped through the air to a big silver box mounted on the ceiling to the left of the other door.
"Oh no, a pixie," she moaned as she realized what it was and where it was going. The thing had flown up through the other vent, the one that sucked the cool air from the room into the rest of the building. She hadn't known the pixie was there. They didn't show up to fae senses, because they weren't natural creatures but made entirely of magic, at least until they fell in love with a mortal. They went to great lengths not to fall in love with mortals. By Creation, she should have checked the other cells. She cursed herself for being so foolish.
"We don't have much time," she said, her voice pitched too loudly, and she realized she was about to panic. She stopped and took deep breaths.
"Then you'd better get going on your plan, hadn't you?" She could hear the grimace in Dawning’s voice.
"Can't you help her with whatever she's doing with those seeds?" Jaekob asked.
Dawning grunted, his voice muffled behind the mattress. "No, only one at a time without a ceremony, and we don't have time for that."
"Be silent," Bells snapped. With the room silent, Bells pushed all other thoughts from her mind and focused on channeling her magic into the seeds. They were struggling to grow, but baby trees didn't do well shoving up iron bars. Her magic could help, however. She imagined the seedlings, pictured them growing hard as ironwood and shooting up into the sky.
The two pine trees hardened and grew even faster. Still the gates were too tough for them. As the seedlings became saplings, they bent around the gates rather than the other way around, but when their tips poked out into the corridor from beneath the cell doors, they grew upward again, as though reaching for the sky—which, in a manner of speaking, they were.
And the bigger they got, the stronger, thicker, and harder they became. The bottom edge of the cell doors became embedded within them, but still the trees grew. She heard a metallic groaning sound. It was working, but too slowly. Guards would be there before she was done. She thought about taking cover, but then she wouldn't be able to keep feeding the saplings her energy. She pushed thoughts of the coming guards aside and kept focusing.
She jumped when the door crashed open. An elf stood silhouetted in the doorway, backlit by the brighter corridor light beyond. He carried a sword, and for a brief instant, Bells panicked at the thought that it might be the Sword of Fire.
She quickly realized how silly that thought was. A simple prison guard wouldn't be carrying that artifact. That still left her with the problem of an armed elf stepping through the doorway into the room. Then, two more elves came in behind him and stood to either side.
The lead elf said, "Bells, how nice of you to join us. I thought you had more sense."
"How do you know my name? Who are you?"
"It's the White King's business to know
the identity of the strange new fae woman the dragon prince suddenly kept company with." He turned and sneered at Jaekob, "I see what you saw in this one. She is a pretty little thing, isn't she? Still, I expected better from the prince. A simple farm girl... You really couldn't do any better than that? She's more our type."
The way he said it made Bells shiver. Danger...
From behind a mattress came Jaekob's muffled voice, "No one could do any better than Bells, fool. You think I care about petty politics when I will rule the world someday? I prefer her company to a hundred of you telling me all the things I'd want to hear. You elves are good for nothing but backbiting and licking boots."
The three guards laughed as if he'd told a hilarious joke. The lead guard shook his head and said, "That's the reason you dragons don't deserve to rule this world. The White King has a better appreciation for the proper social order. When he rules, these arrogant, uppity fae will be taught their place." He turned to Bells. "Too bad you won't be there to see that. Guards, kill her."
Jaekob screamed and ran from the back of the cell, slamming into his cell bars. He reached one arm out and desperately tried to grab one of the elves. He was out of reach, though. Jaekob's desperate attempt to get to them, to protect Bells, only made them laugh, mocking him. It didn't stop them from striding toward Bells with their weapons ready.
The elf said, "You're out of time, fae," as he raised his sword, and Bells closed her eyes. So much for fulfilling the Sword's destiny.
She heard a wet, sucking thump, and then gurgling. When she opened her eyes, they went wide in surprise; one of the tree branches had impaled the elf, who looked down at the wood sticking through him with surprise. He looked up at Bells for a second before his whole body slumped.
Why had the elf impaled itself on a branch? It didn't make sense. She couldn't make a branch grow fast enough to do that, and she hadn't tried, so there was no other explanation.
"Bells," Jaekob cried, snapping her from her daze, "Hurry up!"
Embers of Darkness (Through the Ashes Book 2) Page 8