Still…I wondered if I was missing something. I wondered if we were really on the same page. Lu had a faraway look in her eyes, like she was calculating losses on a battlefield.

Maybe what I sensed was her worry about Meg.

We both knew that, under most circumstances, Meg was fully capable of rescuing herself. But with Nero…I suspected Lu, like me, wanted Meg to be strong enough to save herself. We couldn’t make the hard choices for her. Yet it was excruciating to stand by while Meg’s sense of independence was tested. Lu and I were like nervous parents leaving our child at school for the first day of kindergarten…except in this case the kindergarten teacher was a homicidal megalomaniac emperor. Call us crazy, but we didn’t trust what Meg might learn in that classroom.

Lu met my eyes one last time. I imagined her packing away her doubts and fears in her mental saddlebags for later, when she had time for them, along with her cucumber-and-cream-cheese sandwiches.

“Let’s get to work,” she told me.

It wasn’t long before we heard the hallway door bang open and heavy footsteps approaching the cell.

“Look casual,” Lu ordered, reclining on her couch.

I leaned against the wall and whistled the tune to “Maneater.” Gunther appeared, a batch of neon-yellow zip-tie restraints in his hand.

I pointed a finger gun at him. “Hey, what’s up?”

He scowled. Then he looked at Lu with her new silverware attachments, and his face split into a grin. “What are you supposed to be? HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!”

Lu raised her fork and knife. “Thought I’d carve you up like the turkey you are.”

Gunther started to giggle, which was disturbing in a man of his size. “Stupid Lu. You have fork-and-knife hands.…HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!” He tossed the zip-ties through the cell’s bars. “You, ugly boy, tie her arms behind her back. Then I tie you.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

His mirth dissipated like foam on skink soup. “What you say?”

“You want to tie us up,” I said very slowly, “you’ll have to do it yourself.”

He frowned, trying to make sense of the fact that a teenaged boy was telling him what to do. Clearly, he’d never had children.

“I will call other guards.”

Lu snorted. “You do that. Can’t handle us yourself. I’m too dangerous.” She held up her knife hand in what could have been taken as a rude gesture.

Gunther’s face turned a mottled red. “You’re not the boss of me no more, Luguselwa.”

“Not the boss of me,” Lu mimicked. “Go on, get help. Tell them you couldn’t tie up a weakling boy and a no-handed woman by yourself. Or come in here, and I will tie you up.”

Her plan depended on Gunther taking the bait. He needed to come inside. With his barbarian manhood in question, and his honor insulted by a rude piece of silverware, he did not disappoint. The middle bars of the cell retracted into the floor. Gunther strode through. He didn’t notice the salve I’d slathered across the threshold—and let me assure you, Will Solace’s burn ointment is slippery stuff.

I’d been wondering which direction Gunther might fall. Turns out, backward. His heel shot out from under him, his legs crumpled, and his head slammed hard against the marble floor, leaving him flat on his back and groaning halfway inside the cell.

“Now!” Lu yelled.

I charged the door.

Lu had told me that the cell bars were motion sensitive. They snapped upward, determined to stop my escape, but they had not been designed to compensate for the weight of a Germanus lying across the threshold.

The bars smashed Gunther against the ceiling like a hyperactive forklift, then lowered him again, their hidden mechanisms whirring and creaking in protest. Gunther gurgled in pain. His eyes crossed. His armor was thoroughly crushed. His ribs probably weren’t in much better shape, but at least the bars hadn’t gone straight through him. I did not want to witness that kind of mess, nor step through it.

“Get his sword,” Lu ordered.

I did. Then, using Gunther’s body as a bridge across the slippery salve, we escaped into the hall, the eye of the security camera watching as we fled.

“Here.” Lu gestured to what appeared to be a closet door.

I kicked it in, realizing only afterward that 1) I had no idea why, and 2) I trusted Lu enough not to ask.

Inside were shelves stacked with personal possessions—packs, clothes, weapons, shields. I wondered what unfortunate prisoners they had once belonged to. Leaning against a back corner were my bow and quivers.

“Aha!” I grabbed them. With amazement, I drew the Arrow of Dodona from my otherwise empty quivers. “Thank the gods. How are you still here?”

THOU ART PLEASED TO SEE ME, the arrow noted.

“Well, I thought the emperor would have taken you. Or turned you into kindling!”

NERO IS NOT WORTH A FIG, said the arrow. HE SEES NOT MY BRILLIANCE.

Somewhere down the hall, an alarm began to blare. The overhead lighting changed from white to red.

“Could you talk with your projectile later?” Lu suggested. “We have to move!”

“Right,” I said. “Which way to the fasces?”

“Left,” Lu said. “So you go right.”

“Wait, what? You said it’s left.”

“Right.”

“Right?”

ODS BODKINS! The arrow vibrated in my hand. JUST LISTEN TO THE GAUL!

“I’m going after the fasces,” Lu explained. “You’re going to find Meg.”

“But…” My head spun. Was this a trick? Hadn’t we agreed? I was ready for my close-up, my big heroic sacrifice. “The leontocephaline demands immortality for immortality. I have to—”

“I’ve got it covered,” Lu said. “Don’t worry. Besides, we Celts lost most of our gods long ago. I’m not going to stand by while another deity dies.”

“But you’re not—”

I stopped myself. I was about to say immortal. Then I considered how many centuries Lu had been alive. Would the leontocephaline accept her life as payment?

My eyes filled with tears. “No,” I said. “Meg can’t lose you.”

Lu snorted. “I won’t get myself killed if I can help it. I have a plan, but you need to move. Meg is in danger. Her room is six floors up. Southeast corner. Follow the stairs at the end of the hall.”

I started to protest, but the Arrow of Dodona buzzed in warning. I needed to trust Lu. I needed to cede the battle to the better warrior.

“Fine,” I relented. “Can I at least tape a sword to your arm?”

“No time,” she said. “Too unwieldy. Wait, actually. That dagger over there. Unsheathe it and put the blade between my teeth.”

“How will that help?”

“Probably won’t,” she admitted. “But it’ll look cool.”

I did as she asked.

Now she stood before me as LuBeard the Pirate, cutlery-wielding terror of the Seven Seas.

“Ood ruhk,” she mumbled around the blade. Then she turned and raced away.

“What just happened?” I asked.

THOU HAST MADE A FRIEND, the arrow said. NOW REFILLEST THY QUIVERS SO THOU SHALT NOT SHOOT WITH ME.