Slowly, ever so slowly, the darkness around him seemed to become less oppressive. In the distance, the rhythmic sound of a knife chopping something on a wooden surface broke the silence. Confused, Lewis turned, searching for the source of the sound. For a moment, the chopping stopped, replaced by the sound of hushed voices. Then, as it started again, Lewis felt a whole host of memories flooding back to him.

First, he remembered The Misty Islands. The tomb in the forest The arrow. At the thought of the pain, he felt queasy. Then there were the voices—tiny fragments of conversations that he couldn’t place. Gradually, the chopping became louder, drawing closer as the darkness faded.

His eyes snapped open.

‘Lewis?’ someone beside him whispered, the chopping sound disappearing instantly. He recognised that voice.

‘Emily?’ he croaked, blinded by a bright light.

‘I’m here,’ she said quietly. A moment later, he felt himself slide sideways as she sat down beside him.

‘Where are we?’ he asked. The sudden emergence from the darkness into the bright light was making it difficult to see his surroundings. Everything just seemed to be a blur.

‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘We’re in Whitecliff.’

‘We were at the tomb.’

‘Yes. That was a week ago, though,’ she explained gently. ‘Thomas brought us here.’

‘Where is he?’ Lewis demanded. There was something he needed to tell him, but he couldn’t quite remember what it was.

‘He’s gone into town to pick up a few things I need for tonight’s meal,’ she said.

‘It was you? You were the one chopping?’

‘How did you?

‘I heard you. I could hear the chopping in the darkness,’ Lewis said. ‘Why is it so bright? I can’t see.’

‘Sorry, let me close the curtains,’ she said, standing up. Still blinded by the light, he listened to her footsteps as she moved around the room. A few seconds later, the light weakened considerably. ‘Is that better?’

‘Much,’ he croaked as he was finally able to make out the features of the room. In silence, he watched as she crossed the room, pulling her hair into a messy ponytail as she sat down in the chair beside his bed. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi yourself,’ she replied as she picked up a chopping board and knife from the floor. For a moment, she considered him carefully before she started chopping the meat on the board again.

‘I don’t understand; what happened?’ he asked as he sat up, looking around the room. Without the blinding light, he recognised it as the bedroom that belonged to the cottage he and Emily had brought to Whitecliff after they had escaped Tristan.

‘George hit you with an arrow in the tomb,’ she said, setting down the knife carefully. ‘We just about managed to get out of the tomb before you passed out.’

‘I remember getting out of the tomb,’ Lewis said as he tried to remember what had happened next.

‘You were in a pretty bad state. You were completely delirious; you wouldn’t stop talking about clouds for some reason,’ Emily said.

‘I don’t remember that.’

With a weak smile, she nodded. ‘Despite all that, you managed to point out that it was impossible for George to hit you with an arrow without a bow. Even I hadn’t noticed that, and I wasn’t borderline insane at that point.’

‘How did he do it then?’ Lewis asked. From the jumble of memories that had returned to him, he distinctly remembered the arrow buried in his flesh just below his heart.

‘Thomas is refusing to talk about it,’ Emily muttered darkly. ‘All he said was that he had known about Anthony but not George. After that, all he did was insist that we get you to the nearest town and that he be left alone with you. That’s how we ended up here.’

‘You said that was a week ago?’ Lewis asked as he picked up the glass of water that sat on the bedside table. ‘Is this yours?’

‘It’s fine; drink it,’ she said as she returned to chopping the meat. ‘That was a week ago. You’ve been out of it pretty much since then.’

‘The entire time?’

‘Well, there were a couple of times when we thought you were coming around,’ she said, pausing for a moment as she wiped her eyes with her sleeve. ‘You would mutter a few words here and there, but no one could really work out what you were on about.’

‘Are you alright?’ he asked, setting down the glass as he tried to reach out a hand to her.

‘I thought I had lost you,’ she whispered as a tear rolled down her cheek. ‘I don’t know what Thomas did, but he managed to stop the bleeding. He didn’t leave your side for a second until we got to Whitecliff. I don’t think he even ate anything until we got here.’

‘It’s okay,’ he assured her. ‘I’m alright now.’ If he was being honest with himself, then he still didn’t feel too great, but he didn’t want her to worry any more than she had.

Before either of them could say anything else, there was a commotion outside the door. ‘I don’t care. I have to speak to him; it’s urgent!’ A man shouted as he threw the door open with a crash.

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‘I already told you that he isn’t...’ Amanda said as she appeared in the doorway, freezing when she saw that Lewis was sitting up in bed. ‘Awake.’

‘Well, it looks to me like he is,’ Edmund said as he turned away from her to face Lewis. ‘How are you?’

‘I’ve been better,’ Lewis said slowly. How had Edmund known they were back? ‘What’s going on?’

‘Do you want me to get rid of him?’ A man with a messy black beard and unruly hair asked as he appeared behind Amanda.

‘It’s fine,’ Lewis said quietly as half a dozen people appeared in the doorway as well. He recognised most of them as the crew from The Wings of Gold, and standing in the centre was Arthur, a crutch under each arm.

‘Lewis, you’re awake,’ he said brightly.

‘How’s your ankle?’ Lewis asked as Arthur pushed his way to the front of the group before taking up a place where he could lean against the wall.

‘Broken,’ he sighed. ‘Still, I’ll take it over whatever you've got.’

‘What on earth is going on in here? a voice shouted from behind the group assembled in the doorway. A moment later, Thomas appeared, forcing his way through with a paper bag in his arms. ‘Edmund!’

‘Hello brother,’ Edmund said. ‘It’s been a while.’

‘What are you doing here?’ Thomas demanded, handing the bag to Amanda as he stared Edmund down.

‘I heard about your incident at the tomb,’ Edmund said. ‘Anthony has the crown, and he lit the coronation beacons three days ago!’

‘They got away?’ Lewis asked, looking to Emily for answers.

‘We had just freed Thomas and Arthur when they came out of the tomb. Before we could do anything, they disappeared into the forest. I’m sorry,’ the man with the beard said.

‘Do I know you?’ Lewis asked.

‘No, my name is Leo; I was on the ship that Anthony and George used to get to the island,’ he explained.

‘He was with them? What’s he doing here?’ Lewis demanded as he tried to get up. Unfortunately, it seemed as if Leo was spared for now, as Lewis got tangled up in the bedcovers.

‘It’s alright,’ Thomas said, placing a hand on Lewis’s shoulder and gently pushing him back against the pillows. ‘He found Amanda in the forest and helped us fight off the ones who were keeping us prisoner.’

‘As nice as this little chat has been, there are more pressing issues right now,’ Edmund said. ‘Such as Anthony invoking the prophecy in four days.’

‘Well, disrupt the ceremony then,’ Emily suggested.

‘I can’t, he said as he looked at Lewis. ‘But you can.’

‘No!’ Emily and Thomas spoke together.

‘You were the one who let them get away with the crown; now it’s your turn to stop them,’ Edmund said.

‘We let them get away with the crown. Emily demanded as she stood up suddenly, the chopping board covered in meat falling to the floor unnoticed by her or Edmund, who had locked eyes fiercely over the bed.

‘Yes. If it wasn’t for you, he never would have gotten the crown in the first place!’ Edmund shouted.

‘Don’t. You. Dare,’ Emily snarled, climbing over Lewis as she scrambled across the bed towards Edmund, the knife she had been using to cut the meat in her hand. Grabbing him by the front of his brown travelling cloak, she held the knife to his throat. ‘Don’t you dare blame us for this! You were the one who sent us looking for the crown. You were the one who nearly got us killed more times than I can remember. We did everything we could do!’

‘You could have stopped Anthony and George from escaping!’ Edmund snapped.

‘Emily,’ Lewis said carefully as he saw a drop of Edmund’s blood roll across the blade of the knife.

‘He was dying!’ she shouted. ‘If saving him was the difference between stopping Anthony from getting the crown and getting it, then I couldn’t give a damn about your prophecy!’

‘And you both would have been dead long ago if it wasn’t for me,’ Edmund said with a smile. ‘If anything, you owe me, not the other way around.’

‘Emily,’ Lewis said quietly as he untangled himself from the bedcovers and stood up. Making sure to take things slowly, he walked over to her. When he reached her side, he gently ran his hand down her arm, carefully removing the knife from her grip before she could draw any more blood or worse. ‘It’s okay.’

Taking the knife, Lewis stepped back, turning his attention to Edmund. ‘Considering what we’ve been through, I think we’re about even,’ he said.

‘Anthony is going to invoke the prophecy,’ Edmund said. ‘You promised you would go along with the plan and help me stop it.’

‘Well, your plan didn’t work very well, did it?’ Lewis said. ‘But because I made you a promise, I intend to keep it. I will help you stop the prophecy, but after that, I want nothing more to do with you.’

‘I knew there must have been a few brain cells between the two of you to get this far,’ Edmund said bitterly.

‘Seeing as your plan didn’t work last time, we’re going to do things my way,’ Lewis said.

‘You think they’ll just let you walk back into the city with your band of misfits? You’re Tristan’s most wanted, along with her,’ Edmund said with a nod to Emily, who was still staring him down furiously. ‘There’s a better chance of you riding a rain cloud over the wall than getting through those gates.’

‘Then we won’t go through the gates,’ Lewis said slowly. Rain...water...that was it. ‘Four days from now, you’re going to close the pump house for inspection.’

‘What?’ Edmund asked, baffled.

‘Close the pump house,’ Lewis repeated as he thought about the service tunnel he and Emily had used to escape Tristan before.

‘The pump house is only closed for inspection at the end of Frost,’ Edmund said.

‘Well, it’s time to make an exception if you want the coronation stopped,’ Lewis said as he turned the knife around in his hand so that he held the blade between his fingers, the handle held out to Emily. ‘We do it my way, or I give her the knife back. And you had better hope someone else stops her this time because I won’t.’

‘Alright, I’ll close the pump house,’ Edmund muttered.

‘There are two archers in the guard, Louise Culbertson and David Hodge. I want them to be patrolling the entrance to the pump house service tunnel inside the city,’ Lewis instructed.

‘They had a big shakeup of guard pairings after you and Emily escaped the city,’ Edmund said.

‘I don’t care,’ Lewis said quickly. ‘You make it happen regardless. I'd also like to know, Thomas, how many of us there are.'

‘Including the crew of The Wings of Gold, twenty-three,’ Thomas supplied after a moment of thought.

‘I want twenty guard uniforms as well,’ Lewis said. ‘I want them stored near the entrance to the service tunnel as well.’

‘You’re asking an awful lot. How do I know you’ll stop the coronation?’ Edmund asked.

‘You’ll just have to trust me, I guess. Like we trusted you,’ Lewis said.

‘Right, now that that’s sorted, get the hell out of my house,’ Emily snapped as she took the knife from Lewis. Waving it at Edmund threateningly, she ushered him through the crowded doorway and out of the room. A moment later, they heard the door slam shut.

‘Remind me not to make her angry. At least when there are knives around,’ Arthur muttered, puffing out his cheeks.

‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ Thomas said.

‘Don’t worry, I know how to get us into the city,’ he assured them.

‘I’m sure you do. The real question is, Are you going to be in a fit state by the time you get there?’ Thomas said. ‘You have no idea how close you have been to death these last few days.’

‘I agree with Thomas,’ Emily said as she reappeared. ‘You need to rest.’

‘I will as soon as this is over,’ Lewis said as he sat back down on the edge of the bed.

‘Promise me?’ she said as her eyes found his pleadingly.

‘I promise.’

‘I’ll go and get us some horses,’ Thomas muttered, ushering the watching crowd out of the room. ‘We’ll have to ride hard if we’re going to make it to Tristan in time.’ With a soft thud, he pulled the bedroom door shut behind himself, leaving Lewis alone with Emily again.

‘Why did you do it?’ she whispered.

‘I made a promise, and I keep my promises. Always,’ he said.

‘But you aren’t well. It doesn’t take a genius to see that,’ she argued.

‘I’m fine,’ he lied with a swallow as he tried to hide the sudden feeling of light-headedness that crossed him. ‘I’m fine,’ he repeated. At least I hope so, he thought.