It’s pitch black when I jolt awake, someone had grabbed my shoulder. For some reason, I’m not groggy at all, my mind is perfectly clear, and so when my vision focuses on Istere’s bearded face, I already know why she’s here.

“Time to go?” I ask softly. She nods.

“Everyone else is already up, you were the last one I woke. Is there anything you need to grab?”

“Breakfast. Can’t save the Queen on an empty stomach.” I joke, Istere smiles at me and although this room has no lights, her golden eyes still sparkle.

“Briareth thought the same. He’s already eating some eggs I had Blix grab.”

“I think I’ll join him then.” I say and smile at her. She smiles back, not quite as wide as the smile at my joke was, but I’m still grateful for it. I’m not sure if she understands that I’ve mostly made my peace with her identity, but this isn’t the time or place to talk about our feelings. Right now, we need to go save her mother.

I hop out of bed and head into the main sitting room where Blix is going over the plan one last time with the others. Sure enough, Briareth has a small platter of hard boiled eggs in front of him, and he’s happily munching on one. Faladel nibbles one absentmindedly as he stares over Blix’s shoulder. I plop down in a chair and catch the ending of the lecture as I snag an egg and gulp it down.

“Expect security to be up around the entire area. The High Priest will probably have mercenaries dressed in guards uniforms. It would be dumb if he didn’t, since tonight is the only night we’d be able to stage a rescue. Most likely Team B will face quite a few blunt questions and spearbuts before you reach your destination. However, if your costumes are convincing, you shouldn’t face any spearheads.” Blix stares at Briareth and I. “Instead of eating, you should probably be prepping those costumes.” He says.

“Hey, nutrition is important!” Briareth protests. “I make it a point not to go into any life threatening situations on an empty stomach, and every time I’ve made it back alive, so it has to be doing some good!”

“What he said.” I say, stealing another one of the eggs on his plate.

Blix sighs, but doesn’t nag us anymore, instead turning to Istere and Faladel to go over their group’s part. “Faladel, you should also get on your disguise, but that will have to wait until Briareth can help you, since you’re supposed to be dressing up as him. Remember, our job as Team A is to get caught and hold their attention in one place while Team B does the actual rescuing. We need to hold their attention for at least thirty minutes, but we won’t be enacting our escape plan until it gets dangerous or until we hear a commotion saying the Queen has escaped. Briareth, did you finish that flashing rune you said you could make?”

“Af caurse!” Briareth confirms through a mouthful of egg. He pulls a small stone out of his pocket and sets it on the table. Swallowing, he adds on “It won’t go off until four-o’clock exact, and then it will blind pretty much everyone around for at least a few seconds. I adjusted it so that it will alert you by heating up a little bit first, so you have time to close your eyes.”

“Perfect. Better than I expected. Thank you.” Blix says, Istere tucks the stone into her pocket. “I and Istere will go get on our disguises. Faladel, come join us after Briareth finishes your base disguise.” Faladel nods, and we split up.

In fifteen minutes, we’ve all donned our disguises and meet up in front of the exit. Faladel, Blix, and Istere all look very suspicious in black clothes that cover their entire bodies. Faladel looks especially ridiculous, hunched over in a vain attempt to look smaller. Meanwhile Briareth and I just look like normal peasants. Shabby thin clothes, brown hooded cloaks, dirt smudged on our faces, nowhere near as eye-catching as Istere’s group. We head out first, at 3:20 a.m, making our way out of the castle from a secret passage that’s supposed to be an escape route for royalty. I’m almost immediately lost, but Briareth has it all in hand, perfectly remembering the instructions Istere pointed out last night to find it. Within five minutes, we’re out on the quiet city streets. There are people out, some carrying torches or lanterns, some darting between shadows, we join the shadowed ones. Somewhere behind us I know Faladel, Blix and Istere are making their own way out of the castle, and darting over the rooftops to get towards the church.

Briareth and I head in the rough direction of the church through the lower districts, and Briareth only gets lost once. I’m super impressed. All those twisting alleys, and yet he still manages to find his way. However, even though it’s impressive, I’m still nervous. I don’t know where my friends are, if they’re in trouble or not. But I thrust those thoughts aside and focus on my current situation. Deep breath in, deep breath out. A soft fog in the air, grime in my mouth and throat. Cracks of sickly yellow light from behind closed doors and shuttered windows. Cobblestones so dirty that my feet make no sound on them. Briareth is certainly taking us through the poorer sections of the city. It’s probably the shortcut Blix had pointed out on the map.

As we take a right, and then an immediate left, Briareth pulls me into a small crack between boarded up houses, and gestures to me to be quiet. In front of us pass a small platoon of guards, just seven, but they look a lot more grizzled and tough than any city guards I’ve seen.

“Mercs” Briareth whispers after they’re gone. “Come on, we’ve got to keep going.”

“Oh, leaving us so soon?” A nasally voice snarls. “But the boys and I haven’t even shown you a proper welcome yet.” I twist around immediately, and see five big dwarves standing deeper in what I had thought was only a crack. Apparently, it opens up into a larger alley, and on the wall I spot a crude black swan drawn in pitch. To dodge the guards, we’d stepped into gang territory, and thereby declared ourselves fair game. Whoops. Big whoops.

Almost all of the men accosting us look to be army rejects or scavengers– those who avoided conscription and have to live outside the law. A few have missing limbs, one is missing an eye, but they all look like they’ve been in numerous fights. Briareth, undaunted squares up, pulling two daggers from somewhere and tossing me one.

“Yes.” He replies. “Leaving was our intention. Unless… did you want to try and stop us?”

Their leader, a dwarf with all his limbs and eyes, glares at us with both of them. “As soon as you stepped into Black Swan territory, you forfeited your right to life, limbs, and valuables. But you can leave if you and your friend can cough up ten gold each right now.”

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“Do we look like we can afford that?” Briareth deadpans. “You’d get more out of selling our organs than robbing us blind, mate.”

I shoot him an alarmed glare “Don’t give them ideas!” I hiss.

“Well in that case, don’t mind if I do.” The man says, grinning wickedly. He draws a short sword, and almost all of his buddies draw weapons of their own, ranging from daggers to slingshots. Slowly, they begin to approach, probably wary of Briareth’s continued cocky attitude.

They have reason to be. Suddenly Briareth throws the dagger in his front hand, hitting the slingshot guy in the knee, who’d been attempting to quietly load his weapon. He howls, his stone goes wild, breaking a nearby window, and all hell breaks loose.

I dodge a short sword, and jab my dagger at the body that thrust it at me. Something inside me switches on, and instead of an enclosed alleyway, I can see myself on the fields of battle once more. Instead of a dagger, I hold a sword, and the same instincts that guided me then guide me now as I pull myself back to the present and thrust my dagger into the chest of the faceless dwarf in front of me. Grabbing his sword arm and twisting, I steal his weapon, facing my next opponent with something that has a bit more reach than a tiny dagger.

As the fight goes on, I realize we actually have the advantage. Briareth is brilliant with his daggers, and since we’re in a tinier part of the passageway, the thugs can only face us two at a time. As I trade blows with another gangster, the clangs echoing through the dark streets, I realize that that was probably why he took out the only long range guy first. I grin, and snake my shortsword down to hit a grasping hand, raising my dagger in the other to block a blow at my exposed face. The gangster screams as the shortsword hits its mark, chopping one of his fingers off at the knuckle. Backing off, he snarls at me and then runs away. I gasp and pant, trying to catch my breath as I prepare for my next assailant.

But none comes. Glancing at Briareth, I realize that besides the guy dead at his feat, and the guy dead at mine, we’re alone again in this alley.

“Did we win?” I ask him. “Did they cut their losses and run?”

Briareth frowns at the deserted alley, but before he can answer me a bright light from behind us casts our shadows forward and onto the bodies.

“Drop your weapons.” A gruff voice orders. It’s not loud, but it is commanding. Slowly, Briareth and I turn around to face this new threat. The mercenaries have returned, with reinforcements, and they all look pissed. Slowly, I drop my weapons, and I hear Briareth’s daggers clatter to the ground as well. This wasn’t supposed to happen. We weren’t supposed to be the group that gets caught.

“Suspiciously competent peasants causing trouble on tonight of all nights?” The apparent leader asks. “We’re going to have to take you in, boys. It will be easier for all of us if you cooperate.”

Briareth, surprisingly, stays silent. Somehow, even though they have over five times our number, I wasn’t expecting that reaction from him. He keeps his head down and his hands up in the air in a gesture of harmlessness, staring at the mercenaries from under his hood.

“We won’t cause any trouble.” I say, realizing that their leader actually wants some confirmation.

“Excellent.” He replies, and nods to his men. They quickly surround us, tie our hands behind our back, and march us off in the direction we were originally heading, towards the back end of the cathedral. Instead of stopping in any of the houses however, we head directly into the church grounds, and into one of the small buildings on the side of the cathedral.

It is a small, dirty room, filled with rakes and hoes and gardening materials of all sorts. Giving short instructions to his men, the leader soon adds two chairs to the mix. Without further ado, our hands and feet are tied to them, and our hoods are ripped back, revealing our faces.

“State your name and business for being out so late.” The leader says, crouching so as to be at eye level with us.

Thinking fast I say “My name’s Kiack, his is Dalton, we were out here because we–” I hesitate, trying to come up with a good excuse.

“We were in need of meds for our ma.” Briareth takes over “We’d heard about a good dealer on 7th ave, and we was hoping to snitch from his stock. Those bandits hit us on our way out, probably guessin’ we hads the money for that sort of thing. We was just defendin’ ourselves.” As he weaves the story, he quickly adopts an accent and the cityfolk grammar.

The leader stares at us, unconvinced. “You two don’t look like siblings.” It was true, Briareth’s skin tone and rust red hair were completely different from my brown hair and lightly tanned look. Neither of us really looked like cityfolk, I was obviously a country boy on close inspection, and our disguises couldn’t do much to hide that.

“Chosen family still be family.” Briareth claims. “That’s what ma always told us.”

“Hmmm…” The captain says, seemingly unconvinced. One of the guards enters the tiny building, somehow stuffing it even more full with guards, and up to the front passes a set of papers. I gulp as I catch a glimpse of one of them in the leaders’ hands.

They’re drawings of faces. Our faces– mine, Istere’s, Blix’s and even Briareth’s and Faladel’s. Slowly the leader of the mercenaries looks through the papers, carefully scanning the drawn faces. Then he looks at us, leaning forward to get a closer inspection.

Without warning, his hand snakes up and yanks Briareth’s false beard off.

“Hey, that hurt!” Briareth snaps, dropping the accent.

“Excellent storytelling.” The leader says dryly, and then, standing up and turning to face his men, “Tard, Aslak, and Igland– stay in here and interrogate these two. I want answers as to where they’re friends are by the time I’m back. Dangant and Urdlet, stand guard outside in case of trouble. The rest of you come with me. We need to tell the High Priest that his little friends actually did show up.”

He and most of his men march out, leaving only three in here with us. Briareth glares after them as the three remaining mercenaries huddle for a few seconds, discussing something.

Soon, one of them approaches us.

“So, you’re one of those elves and the traitor dwarf everyone in the castle was talking about a while back.” He sneers. “The boss doesn’t much like elves, or traitors for that matter, but we’ll see if we can at least grant you a quick death if you tell us where your buddies are. How about that?”

“That’s the best deal you can come up with?” Briareth snorts. “Demented old ladies can strike better bargains than you.”

“We aren’t telling you anything.” I concur, glaring at them stonily. “Easy death or painful one, neither would make us give them up.”

“Give up already! Your plan failed!” The dwarf shouts at us, angered by Briareth’s cheeky response and my stubbornness. “We know you didn’t come here by yourselves, So where’s Prince Yaluda!? We’re going to catch him and his pet guard soon, so save yourselves the pain of getting tortured by our boss when he comes back and tell us already!”

Briareth chuckles, and shakes his head as my heart flutters. Our teammates haven’t been caught yet?

“Oh this is brilliant!” He announces, laughing outright. “You don’t know where they are? Well your lives are going to be miserable!”

“What?” The guard asks, “Why?! Where is he?!”

“Not telling!” Briareth cackles “And it sounds like your boss isn’t going to like that. Here, out of pity, I’ll give you a hint.” He leans forward and winks at our captors. “Yaluda’s not anywhere in the cathedral grounds! That narrows it down for you guys, right?!”

“ARGGHH!” The guard, tearing at his hair and beard in annoyance.

I almost feel pity for him.