Gabriel's City

by Laylah Hunter

  “But— I—” Drake lets Revell drag him up the stairs, too numb and hopeless to struggle hard. Revell’s a big man, broad across the shoulders, and he pulls Drake along like it isn’t difficult. “What’ll happen to—to my friend?” he asks as Revell pushes him into a cell.

  Revell at least meets his eyes, wearing the unhappy face of a man who doesn’t want to be as hard as he has to be. “He’ll hang, once the magistrate’s had a chance to hear the case against him. Tomorrow or the next day, most likely.”

  The bottom drops out of Drake’s stomach, and he feels like his legs won’t hold him. “No. You can’t— There must be some way— Wait, please,” he says as Revell closes the cell door. “Can you send word to my family, at least? To the Harwood plantation, out on Mockingbird Lane. I’ll pay for it. Whatever I have left, you can have it.”

  “Save your coin. We’ll send someone out to tell your family. They’ll likely want to hire someone to plead your case when it’s your turn.” Revell shakes his head. “Don’t get your hopes up too high, though. You’ve already got the Lady’s eye by the time you walk in the prison door.”

  He turns away, and Drake can’t even summon the energy to call him back. Fates. He slides down into a little heap on the floor and wishes for a miracle, for lightning to strike and break open the walls, for the ground to open and swallow him up here, anything but having to sit here and wait and think of Gabriel somewhere in a cell below, hurt and alone and due to hang.

  It’s hard to know how long he sits there, not moving; it seems like ages, but the light from the thin barred window hasn’t really turned, so it can’t actually be that long. There aren’t any other prisoners up here with him, and the quiet is oppressive. The rope around his wrists is rough, scratching at his skin, and his fingers tingle like the feeling’s going out of them. There’s no sign of Revell in the hall, or any of the other guards, either, when Drake struggles to his feet to look. Nobody to come and untie him.

  If he were the clever dragon Gabriel tells him he is, he’d have an escape plan by now. He’d have some elegant way of tricking the guards, or he’d know how to pick the lock on the door, or he’d pull the walls of this rotten place down around him to go free. He’d be—

  Drake stops, makes himself take slow, deep breaths. He needs to keep his wits about him, now more than ever. First thing, he needs his hands free, and after that he can start to work out the rest of the plan.

  The cell doesn’t offer much in the way of assistance. The bed is a straw mat on the floor, like Gabriel’s on Cypress Street, and the only other furniture in the room is the chamber pot, which looks to be painted iron, not porcelain, so he can’t break that for an edge. The bars are sturdy, and Drake searches for a raw join, a seam where the iron’s rough enough to work as a file, but no luck there. Lady take the captain and all his men, and the builders who made the jail so solid. Drake hangs his head, tries to stay calm and figure out what to do next—and realizes he’s staring at the little round heads of the nails holding the floorboards down.

  He kneels, awkward without his hands to catch him, and turns around to try to find the edges of the nails with his fingertips. They lie almost flush against the wood, too close to do him any good, but surely there must be others, mustn’t there?

  “He’s one of yours,” Drake mutters as he searches for other nails, “and I’m one of his. If you make exceptions at all—” which is ridiculous, and he knows it perfectly well; even if the Lady is real and even if she’s listening, why should she make exceptions for anyone? The gallows would just bring them to her. “Please,” Drake says anyway, because he has nothing to lose at this point. His fingers find another nail under the edge of the straw mattress, the head bent out of true just enough to leave it sticking up. “Please help us.”

  The rope is heavy stuff, tough fibers that don’t fray easily, and Drake drags his wrists across the nail until his shoulders ache before he dares to stop and feel for progress. He thinks it’s working, thinks the twisted strands are splitting where he’s been worrying at them. The light is starting to change, warming as though the sky has finally cleared now that they’re not outside to see it. And he has nothing else to do in here—nothing save worry about Gabriel, and wonder what horrible things Westfall might have done to him when he was too badly off to fight back—so when his shoulders recover enough that he can make himself keep moving, Drake goes back to sawing at the ropes.

  By the second time he has to stop, the light from the window is turning orange. There’s not enough time, not enough chances. Drake wonders if someone will come by to feed him tonight, and if so, how long it’ll take. He feels too nervous to eat, his stomach in knots, but it’ll be the best chance he gets. He can’t just keep sitting here. The rope is frayed now, still holding, but more than half-cut. He pulls, flexing the muscles of his arms and shoulders, straining against the unforgiving tension of the rope. It burns, digging into his wrists, and he bites his lip, pulling harder. The cut on his arm from the fight with Barron’s goons starts to ache in time with his heartbeat. No, he thinks, gritting his teeth against the pain. He’s not going to let it end like this.

  The rope gives all at once, so suddenly that Drake almost loses his balance, falling backward. He catches himself on his hands and sits up again, brings his hands in front of himself to see how bad the damage is. Both of his wrists have red, angry welts across them, and when he curls his fingers inward, the tendons ache. But his hands are free.

  Drake gets up, takes two steps across the cell to examine the window. Even without the bars, he thinks he’d have trouble getting through it; the opening’s narrow enough that he’d have to turn sideways to fit, and high enough off the floor that he’d need some way to boost himself up. It’s not the way he wants to go anyway—when he leaves, he wants Gabriel to be with him.

  He looks past the bars, out into the city. The sun’s setting in the distance, and the roofs nearby glow gold. The streets open out only a few blocks away, where— His cell faces the hanging square, Drake realizes. He steps away from the window, feeling sick. Tomorrow, Gabriel—

  No. No, it won’t happen. Can’t. He won’t let it.

  The lock on the door is sturdy, and he doesn’t have anything to pick it with in any case. If he’s going to get out of here, it’ll depend on someone else opening the door. Surely someone will come to feed him soon, won’t they? It sounded like he was being given special treatment because Westfall knows who he is.

  The sun sets before he hears movement on the stairs, though—there’ve been a few sounds from below, muffled through the floor, but nobody coming up to this wing until now. Drake pulls back, gauging his odds. The lid for the chamber pot is the nearest thing he has to a weapon right now. When the cell door opens—

  And then the light of a lantern warms the hall outside, and he sees who’s come to visit him, and he stops. “Anna?” He remembers just in time to put his hands behind his back so it won’t be clear he’s freed them. He should have thought to hide the rope, but by lamplight perhaps the guard—not Revell this time, someone else—won’t notice the curl of it beside the straw mat.

  “Colin,” Anna says, rushing up to the edge of the cell, wrapping her hands around the bars. “Oh, Colin, what have you done?”

  He has to hang his head. “I’m sorry. Of all the ways I could have seen you again, I promise this isn’t the one I’d have chosen.”

  “Of course not,” Anna says, reaching through the bars for a moment before she pulls back and turns to the jailer. “Please, let me in to see him.”

  The guard frowns. “Against the rules. And forgive me for saying so, but you’d have to be mad to want to get close to a killer like him.”

  Anna draws herself up proudly, and Drake thinks, How can she have grown up so fast? It’s only been a few months, hasn’t it? “My brother,” Anna says sharply—Fates, she learned that tone from their father— “will not hurt me, and I will see him.”

  That shouldn’t work, should just lead to an argu
ment or outright dismissal—or maybe Drake’s forgotten what it was like to be important, because it’s the jailer who looks away first. “There’ll be no rescue if he turns on you,” the guy says—gutless little bastard—but his hand hovers over the ring of keys at his belt.

  “I’m not in any danger,” Anna says. Drake could kiss her for her faith in him. She stands waiting, proud and determined, until the jailer shakes his head and lifts the ring of keys.

  The temptation to lunge for freedom now, to push his way through the open door, is so strong Drake can taste it, but he makes himself hold still. He doesn’t want Anna to get hurt, and he thinks his chances will be better when she leaves anyway. The jailer unlocks the door, and the iron bars swing back, and Anna slips inside with him.

  “It’s good to see you,” he says. “You’re looking well.” The cell door closes again behind her, and he tries not to flinch.

  “And you look awful,” Anna says, crossing the floor toward him anyway.

  The jailer harrumphs, and picks up his lantern again. “I’ll be back for you when I’ve seen to the bastards downstairs. You have that long and no more.”

  For a moment Anna frowns like she’s going to call after him when he turns away with the lantern, but she doesn’t, and when the light fades down the hallway, Drake lets his hands fall to his sides.

  “You were the only one who’d come, were you?” He can’t even imagine how much of a scandal his arrest will be, but he’d have expected his parents to at least show up.

  “Father wasn’t at home when the messenger came, and mother said it wouldn’t be proper to come to a place like this without him. She said he’d escort us tomorrow.”

  “And you didn’t care about the impropriety? You should be careful of that sort of thing. Look where it’s landed me.”

  The noise Anna makes is too pained to be a real laugh, and then she’s flinging herself into his arms, holding on tight, and all Drake can think of is the filth on his clothes and how she must be ruining her dress. “You idiot,” she says into his shoulder. “You idiot, Colin. Why didn’t you come home?”

  Drake shakes his head, wraps his arms around her carefully. “I meant to, at first. But there were Barron’s thugs after me, and then Westfall making it worse, and . . . I met someone, and he—” Fates, there aren’t words for it. “It would have been hard to leave him.”

  “But . . .” Anna says, and Drake doesn’t want to hear the good reasons he should have done things differently, doesn’t think he can bear it.

  “He’s the reason I need to get out of here now,” he says before Anna can marshal reason against him.

  “We’ll get you out, I’m sure of it. Even if father doesn’t approve, he wouldn’t abandon you here. He’ll get someone to advocate for you, and it’ll be fine.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant.” Anna tries to pull back, and he holds on tighter. He’s not sure he can meet her eyes. “I need to get out tonight. I don’t have any time to wait.”

  Anna squeezes him tight. “I know it must be awful to be stuck here, but—”

  “It’s not that. I don’t even want to go back to the house, not really,” and he can barely believe the words himself, so he’s sure she won’t. “And if I could— It’s not me I’m worried about. It’s Gabriel.”

  “Gabriel?” Anna says, very softly. “The same Gabriel from the stories you used to tell me?”

  “He’s not . . . he’s not much like the stories,” Drake says. “And he’s looked after me since the night I left home, and now he’s downstairs in one of the other cells and they’re going to hang him in the morning unless I get him out of here tonight.” His voice is shaking by the time he finishes the sentence, and he’s holding her too tightly.

  “Colin,” Anna says, and he nearly tells her that’s not his name anymore. “You can’t— You would throw away this chance for him? He means that much to you?”

  “Yes.” Admitting it out loud feels like letting go a breath he’s been holding for months. “He does.”

  Anna takes deep, slow breaths, and her shoulders are shaking. “I’ve missed you so much,” she whispers. “So much, Colin.”

  “Don’t cry,” Drake pleads. “Don’t cry, Anna, please. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not crying,” Anna insists, even though her voice is choked. “Where would you go, then? If you c-could escape with him.”

  Drake hesitates. They will have to flee the city, won’t they? Too many of the guard know them now. He takes a breath to make a guess, Nothwn perhaps, or Deradan, and there are footsteps on the stairs.

  “Promise you’ll write,” Anna says.

  “What?” Drake asks. When the jailer and his lantern come back into view, he hastily hides his hands again. Anna has tears on her cheeks but her mouth is set in a determined line. “I promise.”

  Anna nods. “Good,” she says, and steps back.

  “Time’s up,” the jailer says, his keys rattling as he steps up to the door. “Said your good-byes?”

  “I have.” Anna sounds sorrowful enough that Drake wishes there were anything he could do to have made this go some other way.

  The jailer pauses with the key in the lock. “Back, you,” he says to Drake.

  Drake steps back half a pace, trying to estimate the time he’ll have, the way he’ll need to move. The key turns in the lock and the door swings open, just enough for Anna to slip through—only Anna stumbles as she takes that last step, crumples in the doorway with her arms flung out in front of her. The jailer curses when her grasping hands wrench his grip free of the cell door, and Drake lunges for it, pulling the door open wider.

  “You whore!” the jailer shouts, trying to tear his hand free of Anna’s grasp, dropping his lantern when she won’t let go. He draws his hand back as if to hit her, but Drake reaches him before he can land the blow. Fear and hunger have made him weak, and he nearly trips on Anna himself, but he manages to crash into the jailer hard enough that they all topple into a heap in the hallway. Drake lands on top, snarls a hand in the jailer’s hair, and cracks his head against the floor before he can pull the cudgel from his belt.

  “That noise will bring others,” he says, rolling free and offering a hand to help Anna up. The lantern’s broken, oil spilled across the floor and blazing bright, throwing wild shadows down the hall. “Are you all right?”

  “I’ll have some nasty bruises on my knees, but I’ll live.” Anna smiles bravely. “And I don’t think there are any other guards in the jail right now. You have your chance, brother.”

  Drake stares at her. “You tripped on purpose, didn’t you?”

  Anna raises her chin defiantly. “You’re not the only troublemaker in the family.”

  “Thank you,” Drake says, reaching for the keys that still hang from his cell door. “Now don’t let it get the better of you. You don’t want to end up like me.” He pockets the keys and turns for the stairs.

  “Colin!” Anna says. “You can’t— You’re not going to just leave him there, are you?”

  Drake looks back. The fire from the lantern isn’t going out. Some of the oil splashed far enough that the flames are reaching for the edge of the straw mat in the cell now, and if that catches—the flame licks at the cloth, turning blue, coiling up in smoky tendrils—then the building itself may light. The guard lies where they left him, out of the fire’s reach for now but likely not for long.

  The flames will wake him, Drake nearly says, but the way Anna stares makes him waver. “You’ll have to help me,” he says instead.

  Anna nods, and when Drake reaches for the man’s ankles, she takes his wrists. It’s awkward, and the man’s heavy, but they get him more than halfway down the stairs before Anna stumbles.

  “Let him down,” Drake says. “That’ll do, won’t it?” He can smell smoke from upstairs, and if the jail’s going to burn he can think of someone he’d far rather be carrying out of it.

  “I rode here,” Anna says as they make their way down the last of the stairs. She takes
his hand. “I’m going to get a carriage home. Take my horse.”

  Drake stops, stunned for a moment at the lavishness of the gesture. “Thank you.” He can remember when that would have seemed an easy offer to make, but barely. “You’re better than I deserve.”

  “Write me from Deradan,” she says. “Or I’ll come looking for you.”

  “I’ll write,” Drake promises. “Dragon’s honor.”

  Anna laughs just a little, a surprised sound, and then leans in to kiss him quickly, her lips brushing the corner of his mouth. “Good luck. Lady spare you.”

  She has, Drake thinks. “Thank you,” he says again. Upstairs there’s a crackling, popping noise, like the fire has found itself some fuel worth the effort. They’re out of time.

  Anna turns, pushing the front door open, and flees into the dark. Drake watches until she’s gone, then turns for the lower wing of cells.

  The door to the wing is locked. Drake pulls out his ring of pilfered keys, trying one, then another. The third one turns, the tumblers of the lock sliding back, and he pulls the door open.

  Inside the air reeks of mold and human filth, bad enough that Drake flinches away at first. It’s dark, the only light from the cells’ tiny windows. He takes a cautious step inside. “Gabriel?” he says.

  There’s movement from one of the first cells. “Who’s there?” someone asks. Not Gabriel, the voice too rough, too low.

  “I’m looking for a friend of mine,” Drake says. “Came in this afternoon. He’s young, slight. He was bleeding when he got brought in.”

  The man in the cell grunts. “In the back. Hasn’t said a word since the captain left earlier.” Drake starts down the row, and the prisoner raises his voice a little more. “You going to help the rest of us out, then?”

  “Once he’s free,” Drake says without looking back. His stomach’s in knots. He tries not to think too hard on what Westfall might have done to Gabriel, alone in the dark down here. His eyes are adjusting now, slowly, and he can see a shape slumped against the wall in the last cell. “Gabriel,” he says softly. There’s no answer.