A DOCTOR STITCHED MY FACE AND DRUGGED ME until everything was numb.
My face.
My thoughts.
My fingers.
Even my numbers.
I faded in and out of existence for a while. Every time I emerged and the pain was unbearable, someone pressed a cup to my lips and made me drink. Never before had I realized how much my cheeks were involved in swallowing, but the bitter liquid dropped the hazy sky of numbness over me again.
Finally, a voice broke through. “We have to leave immediately.”
My heart stopped. Ilina.
“She’s not well enough.” That was Hristo.
“It’s her face, not her legs. She can walk.” Ilina paced through the room. “When the sedatives wear off, she’ll wake up.”
My mouth felt weirdly detached and slow, but I said, “I am awake.”
“Mira!” Ilina rushed to my side.
I peeled my eyes open to find the room lit only by noorestones. The curtains, pulled closed, showed no light around the edges, and the inn had the stillness of everyone sleeping. Bandages had been packed against my cheek, and rubbed against the gash when I spoke. Everything hurt, but I needed to be here with my friends. Present. Awake. “How long have I been out?”
“One day.” Ilina sat on the bed next to me and took my hand.
“I’m glad you’re here.” I tried to squeeze her hand, but I couldn’t tell if my fingers were actually moving. Everything felt so fuzzy from the medicine. “What happened?”
“You left the dining hall in an uproar,” Ilina said. “Everyone started talking after you left. Dara kept trying to explain that you were ill, but at least a couple of people wondered if you were right.”
That wasn’t what I’d meant, but I supposed it was good to hear that someone had listened. “Where are LaLa and Crystal? What happened to them?” That hadn’t been my intended question, either. I kept losing track of my thoughts. But suddenly I desperately needed to know about my dragon.
Ilina spoke gently. Too gently. “Let’s talk about it tomorrow when you feel better.”
“I want to know now.”
“Tell her,” Hristo said. “No point in sparing her feelings when wondering is going to make her feel worse.”
“Were they taken too?” I rasped. “Like the others? Tower and Astrid and Lex . . .” I needed to tell them about Lex, but Hristo already knew. He’d already seen— “Did they take my dragon?”
Ilina shook her head. “No. I mean, I don’t think so. The morning we came to visit you, before you were sent to Khulan, Crystal and LaLa just flew away.”
“They didn’t come when we whistled,” Hristo said. “Or called their names, or promised food. They left.”
“Have they come back?” My voice was weak. Small.
“Mira . . .”
I wanted to sink into the bed and die. “LaLa thinks I abandoned her.”
“No, I’m sure that’s not it.” But Ilina didn’t say what else it might have been, and misery dug its claws deep into me. My friends knew why I’d vanished, but I couldn’t explain the situation to a dragon. What kind of person befriended a baby dragon, spent nine years training her and growing close, and then did something stupid that resulted in prison? Leaving that baby dragon alone.
Of course LaLa and Crystal had flown away. They knew all they had was each other.
“Don’t look so sad,” Ilina said. “We have a plan.”
“For getting LaLa and Crystal back?”
Ilina made a face somewhere between a smirk and a grimace. “No. Your escape, obviously.”
“Oh. Right.” The medicine was making me slow.
“Escape can wait a few more minutes.” Hristo stood at the foot of the bed, his hands behind his back and his head bowed. Though he wore the Luminary Guard uniform, the mask was gone and the jacket was unbuttoned. Both daggers were at his hips, even the one that had cut me. I wondered if it felt poisonous to him now. Traitorous.
But Hristo didn’t think like that. He was sensible. Protective. I’d have said paranoid before, but after learning about Hurrok trying to kill me last year, I knew better. He was constantly on guard so that I didn’t have to be.
“Mira,” he said, “before anything else, I have to tell you that I’m sorry. I came to protect you and I failed.”
“Hristo.” I pushed myself up until I was sitting. Ilina helped support me where my arms trembled. The numbing medicine still rushed through me, making my movements uncertain. “This isn’t your fault. This is Elbena’s doing.”
“It was my job to stop her,” he insisted.
When I reached for him, he rounded the foot of the bed and took my hand. Ilina took my other, and there I was, connected to the two people I loved best. Their strength filled me, and for five long heartbeats, I just closed my eyes and breathed in this moment.
“You are both the most loyal, bravest people I know.” I didn’t deserve friends like them. “How did you get here?”
“It was your parents, actually,” Hristo said.
“Did they send you?”
He shook his head. “They don’t know we’re here.”
“Your parents worked day and night for your release,” Ilina said. “When they heard about the Bophan Senate dinner, they suggested taking you out of the Pit for it. They said you’d learned your lesson about questioning the Luminary Council and you’d do whatever you were ordered.”
My heart sank. When Mother heard about my performance last night, she would be furious. Even in prison, I was a disappointment to her.
“The Luminary Council fought about it for hours,” Ilina said. “Your parents told my parents, who told me. I think they were just relieved that I was speaking to them, because they told me more than I should have known otherwise—about ship schedules, Luminary Guard selection, and when you would be here.”
“No one let us come,” Hristo said. “But we’d promised we’d help you.”
“I was serious when I said I’d drain the seas if I must.” Ilina squeezed my hand. “So when the council decided to give you a chance, we formed a plan to get you out, just in case they decided to try sending you back to the Pit.”
Or in case I ruined my chances.
“It wasn’t easy,” Hristo said. “I stole a Luminary Guard uniform, but I had to be careful about the times I was with you. I didn’t want to insist I be near you and risk getting caught.”
I nodded, but the movement made my head swim. “Even I didn’t realize you were there until the other night.”
Hristo smiled. “I wanted you to know someone was there for you, but I also didn’t want you to know, because I was worried Elbena might figure out that I was your protector.” Again, his eyes flicked to my cheek. His smile disappeared.
“You still are,” I whispered, my fingers twisted tight with his. “No matter what, I know that you are always protecting me.” I wouldn’t tell him that I’d been imprisoned with someone who’d tried to murder me—not yet, anyway—but he needed to know I still trusted him. I trusted him more than ever.
His response was low and rumbling. “Thank you.”
I turned to Ilina. “And you? How did you come to be a server at such an important state dinner on Bopha?”
She gave a weak laugh. “I’ll tell you when we’re out of here, but my story involves forgery, stowing away on a ship, and bribery.”
They brushed all that effort aside, as though it had been nothing to learn where I’d be and come for a big rescue, but I knew it hadn’t been easy.
Never had I anticipated them taking such actions, and my eyes stung with tears as I imagined the challenges they’d endured—for me. I didn’t deserve such friends.
“As for the rest of our plan”—Ilina leaned forward—“the Chance Encounter leaves on the morning tide. Elbena won’t be on the ship, and we know the captain. The crew will help us if we board tonight. No one will search it for you in the morning, and once they’ve made their stops, we can get off anywhere. Or we don’t have to get on the Chance Encounter at all, if you don’t want. We can leave the Shadowed City and go anywhere on Bopha. It will be more dangerous, though.”
“Thank you.” My voice broke, caught somewhere between love and fear. “You’ve done so much.”
Ilina drew back, already sensing what I was about to do. “But?”
I dreaded saying the words. Their reactions. But if I didn’t speak now, I might go along with their plan and feel terrible about myself for the rest of my days. “I have to return to the Pit.”
“No.” Ilina squeezed my hand. “We won’t let you. You’re never going back there.”
I was already shaking my head—carefully, because I didn’t want them to think I was too weak for this. “I must. My allies—”
“Forget about them.” Ilina surged to her feet. “Forget all about them. Everything that happened there.”
“I can’t. I left people there, and they don’t deserve to be in the Pit any more than I did.” Tears stung my eyes. “Altan hurts them to get to me. He’s a Drakon Warrior.”
Ilina’s eyes grew wide. “Really? They still exist?”
“Not legally, I think.” I bit my lip. “He wanted to know about the shipping order.”
My friends exchanged uneasy glances. “What did you tell him?” Ilina asked.
“Where he could find the dragons, before they’re shipped to the Algotti Empire for good. I thought better the dragons remain with the Fallen Isles than with our enemies.”
“And did he send people to take back the dragons?” A glow of hope lit her face.
“I don’t know.” I swallowed hard. “He wasn’t exactly forthcoming with information. But our goals aligned there. He wants the Heart’s dragons, but I don’t know whether he succeeded. If he did, his people should have reached them already.” Oh, Damina. What if LaLa had been taken? And Altan “rescued” her?
I’d never be able to live with myself.
“If the dragons are rescued,” Hristo said, “the Luminary Council will know the information came from you. It wouldn’t be hard to figure out who told the Drakon Warriors where to find the dragons.”
I slumped. I hadn’t thought of that.
“The line of information points straight to you again. If you have to go back to the Pit and the council finds out you told Altan, you will never get out.” Ilina moved to cover noorestones to keep anyone from investigating the light this late. “The other prisoners don’t deserve you going back just for them.”
Ilina was my wingsister, but I didn’t know how to explain Aaru.
“What about Chenda M’rizz? The Lady of Eternal Dawn.” I glanced between Hristo and Ilina. “She’s politically useful to have on our side. Plus, her crime was the same as mine: she stood up against immoral actions and was betrayed by the people entrusted to protect her island.”
“The deportation decree?” Ilina glanced at Hristo, her manner softening.
“She’s the reason I knew about it ahead of time.”
Hristo’s voice was a soft rumble. “Is that why you didn’t recite Elbena’s speech?”
“I couldn’t permit more suffering.”
“You could have used the chance to tell everyone you’d been suffering too,” Ilina said.
“I didn’t even think about that.” It was true. It hadn’t occurred to me to announce my captivity. My fingertips grazed across the bandage on my cheek. “Imagine what Elbena would have done if I’d told everyone about that.”
“They wouldn’t have cared,” Ilina said. “They accused Chenda of feeding information to a Hartan lover.”
They were quiet a moment.
“Four extra people is a lot,” Hristo said. “We’ll have to obtain papers and supplies for them as well.”
The burden I’d placed on them sat heavy on my chest. My decision wasn’t about me alone. It wasn’t just my time in the Pit, the danger I was in. Every extra person I decided to save was an extra weight on Ilina and Hristo.
“Mira, if you insist on doing this, how would it even be possible? Maybe Hristo can get in, but warriors don’t wear masks down there, do they?”
“I—”
Just then, loud thudding sounded on the bedroom door. It was locked, but then I heard the jangle of keys.
“Mira!” Elbena’s voice carried through the quiet inn.
Ilina glanced at Hristo, who drew his daggers.
“Go,” I hissed. “Out the window.”
But it was too late.
Elbena and her Luminary Guard burst into the room.
We scrambled for the window, but it was locked.
Three metal darts zinged through the room, catching noorestone light.
The first landed in Ilina’s neck. Then Hristo’s. Then mine.
One, two, three.
We dropped.