The King Slayer Part 13

"I don't have time to play games," I snap. "You can tell me what I want to know, which helps you, which helps your Order. Or you can keep this information to yourself, which helps no one. You've got sixty seconds to decide, or else I'm leaving."

She hesitates only five.

"I'll tell you what you want to know," Keagan says. "But first, you tell me what I want to know. Anything I want to know."

There's something sly about Keagan. She wants to trade in information, the way all watchers, players, spies, and operatives do. But something tells me the information she's looking for isn't political.

"Fine. Ask me what you want. One thing," I stipulate.

"What are you doing here?" Keagan says. "And I don't mean here, in this prison. I mean here, in Harrow. With them. Us." Her smile is once again gone, the woman once again returning. "What is a witch hunter-former witch hunter-doing sleeping with the enemy?"

I scowl at her words, forked as a serpent's tongue and no accident.

"I was arrested," I say shortly. "Nicholas rescued me."

"I know that," Keagan says, impatient. "Everyone knows that. Your little story is becoming quite the legend in our world. But as with all legends, there are untruths. I want to know what they are."

"Why?" I say. "What does any of this have to do with what I'm here for?"

"Because I need to know if I can trust you," Keagan replies. "I can't trust you with what I know unless I can trust you."

I turn around then; I almost leave.

"Your debt was repaid," Keagan says to my back. "A life for a life, so they say. But you're not liked here, you can't be. Yet you stay on, and now this." A pause. "I know you'll say Blackwell is after you, but I also know that's only part of it. I want to know the rest of it."

"I stayed because I thought I belonged." I don't look to him, but I think of him anyway, at the cell at the end of the hall, poisoned by the stigma I gave him and hating me for it.

"And now?"

I don't know. The answer belongs to me, but it also belongs to him: John if he can find a way to forgive me, Blackwell if he'll allow me to live; Schuyler if he'll help me to return, Nicholas if he'll permit me to stay if I do.

"I told you what you wanted to know," I say instead. "Now you tell me. A deal's a deal."

"This wasn't about a deal. It was about trust. It's always about trust, sparrow. Don't ever forget that." She smiles then. "And I trust you. You're tough, and I like you. Lose that sweet, fresh-faced-daisy look, you could be a real warrior."

I step to the bars, grip them hard. The Azoth, sensing my anger, fires its solidarity hot and fast against my side.

"You think you know something about me; you know nothing," I say. "And I don't give a d.a.m.n either way. You tell me what I want to know or I swear to you, imprisonment will be the least of your problems."

I reach beneath my cloak, place one hand on the hilt of the Azoth, pushing the fabric aside just enough for her to see the emeralds glinting in the dim light. If she's heard my story, she'll have heard of the Azoth's, too: No legend is complete without a legendary sword.

Keagan's eyes widen. She goes quiet and she stays quiet, a G.o.dd.a.m.ned prodigy.

"Troops," she says finally. "Blackwell's got them, of course, mobilizing in the south. Your old contingent. Witch hunters. Knighted now, but hunters nonetheless."

"I knew that," I say. "Continue."

"They keep guard at Ravenscourt around the clock. West, at the gate. North, where it meets the Shambles. South by the Severn River has no physical protection, but it does have magical. The gargoyles embedded in the walls? They're enchanted now. If they see an intruder, they screech."

I think rapidly, turning over the layout of Ravenscourt in my head. The south garden by the Severn River was going to be my route in. Unless...

"How far do they see?" I say. "All the way to the Severn? Beyond?"

"We've not gotten close enough to find out," Keagan replies. "Fleet is full of people who got too close."

"Is Blackwell there full-time?" I ask. "At Ravenscourt, I mean? Has he left Greenwich altogether?"

She nods. "We've been tracking his movements. He's not been back to Greenwich since the night of the masque. No one has seen him. He's not made any public appearances; well, except the one. Where he was crowned at Leicester Abbey."

So he's done it: made it official. Malcolm swipes a hand across his dark jaw, not in resignation but in anger.

"I can help you." Keagan's voice is low, persuasive. "I could help you get in and out of the city. I've done it before. I could help you kill him."

I step back from her cell. Rearrange the folds of my cloak over the Azoth.

"You can't help me. I wouldn't want your help, even if you could. You got yourself caught." I allow myself a small, recriminating smile. "Perhaps you can tell me more about being a real warrior another time."

"Sparrow, crafty as a magpie." Keagan's smile is nearly feral. "Stand back."

"What?"

"Stand back, Bess." At the sound of Malcolm's voice, at the command in it, I do.

Keagan raises her hands, palms flat, toward the cell door. Mutters something, an incantation by the sound of it, only I can't make out the words. Intrigued despite myself, I watch the skin on her hands turn orange, then red, then white. The air around her palms shimmers with light, with heat; I can feel it, even from where I'm standing.

Then: fire.

A rope of it shoots first from one palm, then the other. They meet in the middle, twisting and turning together before hurtling toward the door. The bars turn the same color as her hands-orange, red, white-and with a small sizzle, like fat in a frying pan, they simply disappear, collapsing into a molten pile of smoking metal.

"Come on, little sparrow." Keagan steps over the rubble into the hall. "Time to fly."

I STEP IN FRONT OF HER, blocking her path. "You're not coming with me."

"Considering I've already broken out, I really don't have much choice," she replies. "If I hang around here, I'll just get tossed back in and I'd rather not go through that again." Keagan s.n.a.t.c.hes her borrowed black cloak from the bench and pushes past me into the hall.

I scowl. This situation is rapidly spiraling out of control.

"You'll never get out of here," I say. "Hexham's guarded by more than just men. There's a spell on it. Only those who aren't prisoners are free to come and go. You can't leave."

"One problem at a time, sparrow."

"If they find you, they'll catch you."

"Which they is this, now?"

"All of them!" I lower my voice to something resembling reason. "If you're caught again, I can almost guarantee prison will be the least of your worries. I may have pushed him out of the way of a sword"-I jerk my head toward Malcolm's cell-"but I'm not doing the same for you."

"They won't kill me," Keagan says. "And they're not going to catch us, because there's no chance they'll think we're going right back to the place we just escaped from."

"There's no we," I say. "There is no us."

Keagan moves to Malcolm's cell. A single hand held out this time, aimed at the lock. Before I can utter a word of protest there's a sizzling sound, a clank, and the door swings wide open. But before Malcolm can exit, I slam it shut.

"Bess!"

I ignore him. "What are you doing?" I say to Keagan. "He can't come with us. You're supposed to make sure he lives. Remember? That's what you said. If he dies, Blackwell is rightful king."

"Aye, I said that," she replies. "But if you're going into Upminster to kill one king, you need another to take his place. Killing a monarch has repercussions, you know. If Malcolm's not there, one of Blackwell's men will take over as regent, and we'll be in this all over again. It's not what I planned when I started this, but sometimes plans have a way of making themselves."

"Is that what you want? What the Order wants?" I cannot voice the traitorous words that come next; I cannot ask her if she wants Malcolm back on the throne, not while he's standing right in front of me.

But I don't need to.

"It doesn't matter what they want," Malcolm says. "They don't have a choice."

"He's right." Keagan pries my hand off the cell door. "Current King Thomas or former King Malcolm, that's all the choice we've got. Scylla and Charybdis, to be sure. But things would be different this time." She swings the door open, sweeps her arm in an ushering gesture. "Malcolm takes the throne again, he won't forget who saved him, and who got him there. Isn't that right, Your Majesty?"

Malcolm's expression is cut gla.s.s. "It's one of many things I won't forget." He spins on his dusty boot heel and strides down the prison hall as if it were an aisle to the throne. Keagan raises a pale eyebrow, then starts after him.

I don't follow, not right away. Because I can feel John's eyes on me, as certain as if it were his hand on my shoulder. I turn around and see him standing by the door to his cell, half lit by shadows. For a moment we stare at each other; I still can't reconcile the change in him. His eyes dark and cold, shadowed as if someone's smeared dirt beneath them; the furrow between his brows no longer a guest but a resident.

I don't give him a chance to turn from me first. I don't give him the chance to throw one last barb at me, as if the sting from the others weren't painful enough. So even before Malcolm can whisper another "Bess!" from the end of the hall, I walk away.

Keagan, Malcolm, and I huddle together at the bottom of the stairs. From where we stand we can make out the door that leads into the courtyard, locked and guarded by the same man I saw earlier. He's leaning against the bars, watching the others play some kind of game. There's the sound of something heavy hitting the dirt, one after the other, then laughter and cheering.

"Are they playing bowls?" Malcolm whispers.

Keagan kicks the wall once, twice. The guard idling by the door turns at the noise, frowns, pulls out a sword. Unlocks the door and steps inside, blade out.

"What are you doing?" I hiss. "He may not know any magic. Not everyone in Harrow does, you know. He may not be able to let us out."

"Shhh."

The guard draws near. He's three feet away, two, when Keagan leaps out from behind the wall, pulls him into a headlock, then drags him into the stairwell. His eyes go wide with recognition.

"Lift the spell," Keagan orders. "Let us out."

"I can't," the guard whimpers. "I don't know any magic."

"Untrue," she says. "You cast a spell on that guard to make him miss his target, because you have a wager with the other guard across the yard."

"How... how do you know that?"

Keagan's neat white teeth are bared in a grin. "When a man watches bowls as if it were blood sport, it's always down to finances. Now. Let us out and I'll let you keep your secret. And your winnings."

The guard curses under his breath. In the next he utters some kind of spell, an incantation. A wasplike buzz stirs the hall, then goes silent.

"You've got ten minutes," he says.

Keagan grabs the back of his cloak and shoves him down the corridor. She finds an empty cell, pushes him inside, and fuses the lock with a blast of heat from her hand.

"Show us the way, sparrow."

I lead them to the cell and the open window I came in through. We climb up and over it and, once outside, make our way across the short clearing to the outer prison wall.

"I scaled it," I tell Keagan. "To get in. I don't think we can do the same to get out. You might be able to, but I don't think he will." I nod to Malcolm.

"You'd be surprised at what I can do," he says.

"I'm sure I would not, my lord." Keagan pulls a face at my servility. But formality is the only weapon I have against him, the only weapon I ever had.

He approaches the wall with the same arrogant posture with which he approaches everything. Spits in one hand, rubs it together with the other, and places both along the stone, feeling for a hold. Keagan throws me a glance; I shrug. Maybe he can do it.

Malcolm begins to climb. To my great surprise, he does it easily, makes it three feet above the ground, five, ten. I move to the wall, too, hoisting my bag over my shoulder before swiping my palm cautiously along the sand, lathering my hands with grit. Beside me Keagan does the same, then starts up the wall beside him. But I don't go, not yet.

About twenty feet up, Malcolm's foot hits scree. He shifts his weight to compensate, but the stone doesn't hold and breaks from the wall in a soundless fall, hitting the ground below with a thump. Malcolm hangs by his hands, his feet dangling in midair, reaching and stretching for another hold. He doesn't find one.

In a breathless moment he falls, silent; I think of the things he's going to break when he lands: a foot, a leg, his knee, or even his back. But he lands on his feet, dropping and rolling to absorb the impact, the way I know to do but had no idea he did.

Malcolm rises and brushes the dirt from his trousers. He doesn't look hurt; he doesn't even look embarra.s.sed.

"You could have broken something," I say. "How did you learn to climb like that?"

Malcolm shrugs. "I spent nearly every night of my thirteenth year inside taverns in the Shambles," he tells me. "I a.s.sure you they were not sanctioned visits."

"An enthralling tale." Keagan drops to the ground beside him, nimble as a cat. "But now you've cost us time. And if you had broken something, you'd have cost us even more. And I a.s.sure you, I'm carrying you nowhere." She bites her lip in thought. "I'll just have to create a distraction."

We tread along the prison wall until we reach the edge. The guards' laughter and the thudding of rocks echo across the empty, shadowed courtyard. Keagan points to a small guard building posted along the front.

"I'm going to set it on fire," she says. "A small one at first, so it doesn't look intentional. Just know, though, it won't be long before they figure out it is."

"And then what?" I say.

"Look for my signal," she replies. "You'll know it when you see it. And when you do, run. Straight for the front gate, as fast as you can."

"Don't hurt anyone," I tell her.

"I won't." Keagan runs across the courtyard, disappearing into the shadows. I can just make out her crouched figure edging toward the guardhouse. I keep my eye on her but I'm acutely aware of Malcolm edging up behind me, his shoulder pressed against mine.

"Bess." His voice, whispered in the dark, sends a rope of tension up my spine.

"My lord?" I don't turn around.

"Are you really going to kill him? Uncle?" A pause. "I can't ask you to do that for me."

"I'm not doing it for you." The words come out before I find the sense to stop them. "It has nothing to do with you."

Silence. A shoulder that goes stiff beside mine.