Gray stared at the ceiling in the dark. The bedroll was soft against his back.
That day had crept past in complete solitude for him, until, after midnight, Killian had stalked wordlessly into the room, his uniform soaked in sweat, and - after about thirty seconds in the bathroom - had crashed into the bed.
It was the first time Gray had seen him actually use the bed.
Gray hadn't tried to speak to him, he'd laid on his bedroll feigning sleep. He didn't care what had happened with Killian and the fey, he didn't care what Killian and Jessica had been doing to keep them busy all day.
All that mattered was Gray could hold his nerve and pull off what he'd spent the entire day planning out in meticulous detail.
Right now, Killian breathed slowly. Deep. Measured. Wind blew outside. It whistled through the gaps in the window.
Very slowly and carefully Gray pulled out his stashed items from underneath the mattress. The soft phoenix feather. The tiny apple seeds - seven of them - delivered hidden in Gray’s oats by Rosie earlier that night. Shiny dragon’s breath glazed pottery. Killian’s spare knife from his weapon’s case, and a folded piece of parchment. The prison keys.
Trying not to rustle the blankets, Gray hid them in the pocket of his trousers.
‘Uh, Killian?’ said Gray.
Killian’s breath changed. He rolled over. His voice was hoarse from sleep. ‘For fuck’s sake, what is it?’
Gray swallowed. ‘I need to go to the bathroom.’
He paused, rubbing his forehead. ‘Clochaint, kid, can’t you hold it?’
Gray stilled, feeling the items stashed in his pocket, and his heart thudding against his ribs. Killian settled back down.
‘Killian?’
He snapped upright in the bed. Gray could feel this glare in the dark.
Gray breathed out slowly. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’
‘Ah, gods.’ He flung himself out of bed, fumbling for the keys to the bathroom door. ‘Are you pregnant? What is wrong with you?’
‘Hurry.’
‘You have the weakest damned stomach – you are so soft and spoiled – I swear …’
He dragged Gray to the bathroom and flung him towards the lavatory.
‘You should try looking across a battlefield, kid. What you’ve seen, what you’ve experienced, is nothing.’
Gray crawled towards the lavatory and flipped the seat up.
The silence stretched on. Killian huffed. He watched, leaning back against the tiled wall, his arms folded. Exhaustion was written all over him, it made his face grey and his eyes droop, and his shoulders hunched.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘Uh. It’s coming.’
He swore and bustled around the basin, clearing up any toiletries he deemed dangerous.
Gray swallowed, pressing his hands against the porcelain. Killian left. Gray heard the bed creak as it took his weight.
Gray made retching sounds. Grabbed up the bag of bath salts with trembling fingers. The cleaner by the toilet. Two empty phials Killian had left on the basin. Emptied the potpourri into the bin so Gray could use the bowl.
He set it all down in the centre of the bathroom. Checked the window over the bath. It was unlocked. Gray slid it open, wincing as it snickered for a second – oak whooshing over oak.
Phoenix, dragon clay, apple seed, salt, acid.
It was a basic firebreath composition. It wouldn’t be hot. It wouldn’t do much damage.
But it’d be showy.
It’d be one giant damn distraction.
Gray didn’t know if the transformation would work, though.
It was supposed to have freshly made dragon’s breath clay, the phoenix feather was supposed to be freshly plucked, he didn’t know if the toilet cleaner was the same kind of acid they used in alchemy class, and the salt should have come from a mine in Wingland’s East.
And the seven apple seeds, it was too many.
Seven apple seeds was bordering on dangerous.
But, Gray wanted this firebreath to be out-of-this-world big. He wanted it so big that it would startle any and every soldier on their posts and would send them running in a panic.
Gray crushed the apple seeds and the pottery using the base of one of the phials. Swept it into one phial, his movements clumsy. Estimated out the salt and poured it into the second phial with a dash of the toilet cleaner. Stripped a third of the feather down, gripping the rest in his teeth.
A third now.
Two thirds later.
He rubbed the loose fronds of a third of the phoenix feather into the bowl. They fluttered down, brilliant red and gold.
Checked for sounds of Killian.
All was quiet.
Shook the salt and cleaner in the phial. It frothed and hissed. Poured a third into the bowl with the phoenix feather fronds and counted to thirteen.
Then, added a third of the crushed apple seeds.
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Blew in his breath and intent to activate it.
Gray had ten seconds.
Ten seconds and he’d know if it worked.
But Gray couldn’t sit around and wait. That wasn’t the plan.
The plan was to draw the soldiers into the Hall. Every last one. The soldiers watching the roads, the soldiers standing guard at their posts, the soldiers stationed around Krydon, hell the soldiers standing at their posts inside the Hall. He'd send them running right to where he wanted them. So Gray’d be free to run out into the town square.
Gray unfolded the piece of parchment with his scrawled message to goad Killian, held it against the timber frame of the mirror above the basin, and dove Killian’s knife through it to hold it into place so it’d be the first thing he saw.
Then, Gray gritted his teeth to stop himself crying out as he clambered through the window. He clung to the edge, his bare feet dangling in the cold night air. His fingers burned as they took his whole weight. He prayed no soldiers would see him, dangling in the dark. That he wouldn’t land wrong on his bad ankle. That he wouldn’t break the phials of the remaining salt mixture and apple seeds stowed in his pocket.
Gray swung his good leg out to the right, and he felt the curve of a drain spout. He blindly struck out his hand to grab onto it and pulled himself over, his fingertips bleeding as he gripped the shardy stone.
Gray knew it worked a split second before the explosion went off.
It was like something had sucked all the noise, all the air out of the night. No whistling wind. No movement of branches. No hooting of owls.
Fire exploded out the window, curling and sparking like an overwrought, angry firework. It lit up the other windows of the bedroom.
It swept through the entire floor, like a furybeast of pure spiralling, licking fire.
It had worked.
It had worked so well.
Gray slithered down the drain, grazing his hands and knees, and awkwardly clambered into the window underneath. He tumbled inside and clenched his teeth to stop crying out as his bad ankle took his weight.
He was in a dark conference room. Empty.
Gray lay for a second, on his back, winded, numb. Then, he let out a shout of laughter, covered by the roar of the firebreath above. The fire lingered, and then grew, sparking and crackling out the windows above, like a horde of angry wasps.
Like a million drakemites.
It had worked way too well.
It shouldn’t be that big.
It was unstable.
Move. Move now.
Soldiers, people, shouted outside and inside the Hall. The town bell clanged.
Gray crouched in the shadow, holding back the pain in his ankle, in his lungs, and unstoppered the two phials. Got the phoenix feather ready.
Gray waited.
Waited.
People, soldiers, were stampeding past. No one bothered to glance into the dark conference room.
Gray waited until he heard stomping of the soldiers' heavily booted feet all over the floor above. They needed to stay up there, to give Gray time to run.
Gray had no bowl, but he hoped it wouldn’t matter.
He tipped the ingredients straight onto the floor, counting, ignoring the frantic thrum of his pulse.
Without waiting to see if it worked, Gray stumbled, back through the window and down to the next floor.
He was in a cluttered office.
But, he barely saw it.
The prison.
The Ralph kids.
The guards.
However bad things had been for Gray – it had to be worse for the Ralph kids stuck in the prison.
And those guards had been in there for days.
He struggled to his feet. He poked his head out of the doorway. He recognised it, from being hauled around by Killian. The prison stairs were close.
Gray hobbled, using the wall for support, and then peered around the corner, down the dirty stone steps that lead to the prison.
The soldiers who usually stood watch were gone.
Heart in his mouth, he crabbed down the stairs, hugging the wall, in case soldiers were lurking in the prison corridor.
It was empty.
Gray jammed the key into the lock of the first door. He glimpsed a crowd of dark shapes through the small window, heard quiet mutterings in northern from the guards crammed in there. They yelled as a particularly large explosion went off in the Hall. Angry red light spilled in from the slit windows in the cells. The firebreath must’ve spilled out of the Hall windows.
One guard spotted him.
Sephon.
His indigo uniform was a mess. His warrior tail was matted. But his dark eyes were fierce and his nostrils were flared, and when another large crack from the firebreath shuddered the building, he didn't flinch.
‘Mage,’ he said.
‘Hey,’ Gray whispered.
Gray swung the door open.
He barely had a chance to jerk his head at the open doorway, before they stormed out of the cell.
He was buffeted back and forth in the crush of guards. They took over the keys, rushing to open the other cells.
Gray pressed himself against the wall, so as not to get trampled.
The last to pass him were the two Ralph kids.
The girl skidded to a halt, her auburn braids a matted mess. Her dark eyes were fierce.
Gray had been worried what he’d see, what he’d find, but both the Ralph kids were defiant. Strong.
‘Go,’ said Gray. ‘I’m not sure how long we’ve got.’
‘We’ll help you,’ said the girl.
It was faster, with the two Ralph’s helping. They made it back up the stairs, and out the side door.
They snuck along the shadow cast by the Hall. The girl ducked her head around the corner, checking the state of the town square.
The town square was well lit. Townspeople were hurrying out of their houses, dressed in their night things. A line of soldiers pushed them back. More soldiers were appearing, sprinting into the Hall, to help put out the fire. Several were fighting, saying it was a curse fire, that water wouldn’t work. Gray didn’t have long before they figured out it was just huge firebreath.
Gray and the Ralphs moved, keeping to the shadows, hugging the edge of the town square.
There was an explosion from the top floors. It waa the biggest yet. More unstable.
The crowd screamed, and Gray ducked into a side alley, against the crush of people rushing out of their homes.
Gray stumbled along with the Ralphs, nothing but roaring in his ears, grasping at the dark stone walls of the houses, his arm slung over the shoulders of the Ralph girl, and the boy bringing up the rear.
‘Where are we going?’ she said. ‘I don’t know this town.’
‘The tipsy stag tavern,’ breathed Gray. ‘Tall building. Over there. We go to their stable. The horses.’
If the horses were still there.
If the soldiers hadn’t taken them, or if the stablehands hadn’t let them loose when Barin left.
If they were in any kind of condition to be ridden.
‘Oliver,’ said the girl, ‘check it’s clear. Careful, now.’
‘Your name?’ said Gray.
She glanced at him. ‘Lyrie.’
It was clear.
Everything was lining up.
Gray staggered along the alleyways he knew so well. Came out in Yew Crescent. Then the side alley near the tavern kitchen.
Sweat stung his eyes. His ankle was agony. He wished he could run, sprint, like he used to be able to.
Gray saw Kraus. Sitting in her usual spot, outside the kitchen door of the Tipsy Stag, her curse-marked chin resting on her chest like the night sky wasn’t lit bright as day from sparking and curling flames.
Gray breathed out, staggering forward towards the familiar smells of the horses and alley. One hundred more metres. And they’d be free.
Then a voice called behind Gray.
A drawling voice.
A voice he hated.
‘Aren’t you a little far from home, stray?’