Collette poked her head up beside Julianna again. Through the bars in the small window of their cell door, she looked so small and fragile. It was an illusion. Collette had survived as a prisoner in the castle of the Sandman. Compared to that horror, this was like a resort hotel.
“Ready for what?” she asked.
“We’ll know when the moment presents itself,” Oliver replied.
He had no idea when opportunity would arrive, but he had to have faith that it would. Otherwise, they might as well all curl up and die. The one thing they weren’t going to do was try something stupid like pretending to be sick to draw in the guards and catch them by surprise. That sort of thing worked well enough in the movies, but they’d agreed it was damned unlikely to work for real. And even if it did work, where would they go? In addition to the Atlantean instigators Ty’Lis had sewn into the fabric of the Yucatazcan military and court-soldiers, Hunters, giants, and sorcerers-there were the people of Yucatazca itself. As far as they knew, the monarch of Euphrasia had sent Oliver and his friends as assassins to slay their king. Even if they managed to get out of the dungeon and fight their way out of the palace, then what? Leaving the city of Palenque alive seemed a dubious prospect.
“Maybe you’re not the only one going a little stir crazy,” Collette replied.
As the words left her mouth, she and Julianna exchanged a worrisome glance. Oliver frowned.
“What are you talking about? Are you two okay?”
“We’re all right,” Julianna said quickly, staring at him again across the corridor between their cells. “It’s just…something weird.”
Oliver pulled his face as tightly against the bars as he could and looked left and right along the dungeon hallway. The guards would arrive soon with stale bread and water for breakfast, and perhaps some morning gruel.
“What is it?” he whispered, locking eyes with his sister now. “Don’t try anything. We’ll never get out of here without a plan.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Collette replied.
Panic hit Oliver. “What’ve you got in mind, Coll? If we’re going to act, we’ve got to work together.”
But Collette shook her head. “Nothing like that. Just listen.”
Now it was Julianna’s turn to peer up and down the corridor. When she was sure no guards were nearby, she took a breath. “A little while ago, we felt cold.”
Oliver frowned. “It always gets a little cold down here at night.”
“More than that,” Collette said. “The temperature must have dropped thirty degrees. There were ice crystals on the wall. And I thought I heard-”
“Whispering,” Julianna said.
Oliver stared at them for a second and then pushed away from the door. He paced the cell’s perimeter, running a hand over the thick beard that had grown over the past two months.
The only one of their allies not to escape after the assault on the king’s chambers and the accidental murders of King Mahacuhta himself had been Frost, who Oliver often thought of as “the winter man.” He had been the first creature from the world of the legendary that Oliver had met. Frost had interceded when a monstrosity called the Falconer had been sent to murder Oliver and Collette-though he had lied about the reasons for his presence there and about the Falconer’s target. Still, despite those lies, Frost had saved Oliver’s life many times over.
Magicians of a hundred cultures had gathered together and woven spells to create the Veil, crafting a barrier that would forever separate the legendary from the ordinary. From time to time, human beings slipped through the Veil into the world of the legendary, but once touched by the magic of the Veil, they could never return. There were Doors set into the Veil, few and far between and always under heavy guard, but only the legendary could pass through a Door.
But the Borderkind didn’t need Doors. They were creatures of legend who could travel back and forth through the Veil whenever they pleased. At the time of the barrier’s creation, human beings still had enough faith or fascination for them that they could continue to slip through. Sometimes Oliver thought there was more to it than that-that some of the legendary became Borderkind not because humanity loved them, but because they loved the human world too much to succumb completely to the spells that wove the Veil.
Ever since discovering that Frost had kept so much from him, Oliver had nursed resentment and anger. Had his supposed friend been truthful, things might have turned out quite differently.
“No,” Oliver said, shaking his head, gripping the grate. “If he’s still alive, and he’s found some way to communicate, how does that help? If he can’t get out-and get us out-then we’re no better off.”
“Oliver, I know you feel like he deceived you. Maybe he did,” Julianna said. “What’s his big sin, though, really? He didn’t trust a human being enough to take you into his confidence? Learning the truth at the wrong time might have cost your life anyway.”
“He lied,” Oliver whispered.
Collette banged the door with her palm. “So he played you a little. Treated you like a little kid, the way Dad always did. But Frost isn’t Dad. I didn’t travel with him the way you did, so I can’t know how you feel. All I know are the facts, and-”
“Stop,” Julianna said.
Brother and sister fell quiet, listening. Somewhere, water dripped loudly, echoing off the stones of the dungeon corridor.
“We don’t have time to argue this, Oliver,” Julianna went on. “All we wanted to do was tell you what happened, because it got us thinking.”
“All right. What’re you thinking?”
“That Frost is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for,” Collette said.
Julianna stared across at him. “The moment might never come for us to act, so we’re going to have to make our own moment. From what happened this morning, it seems pretty certain that Frost is still alive, and close. We don’t have to get out of the palace, Oliver. All we have to do is get out of these cells and get to Frost. If we can free him, then he’ll get us out of here.”
Oliver shook his head. “You don’t know-”
Collette shushed him. All three of them stopped again to listen, and this time they heard a clanking of metal as the upstairs door to the dungeon was unlocked and swung open. Heavy boots clomped down the stone steps.
The guards were arriving with breakfast. The conversation was over.
For now.
Which was fine. Oliver needed to think. Maybe they were right; maybe it was time to make their own opportunity. It seemed far more likely they would be able to free Frost than that they could escape from the palace themselves. It might be their one chance at survival.
If Frost could be trusted.
Dark clouds hung pregnant above the battlefield just north of Cliffordville, but the rain did not come. The past few days had been blisteringly hot; rain would have been a blessing. But the gods would never bless an abomination such as this.
Blue Jay flew above the clashing armies, the humid air heavy on his wings. He heard the clang of blades on armor and the cries of the wounded and dying. The blood of humans and legendary alike stained the ground. In the distance, he could see the smoke rising from the ruin that the Yucatazcan forces had made of Cliffordville. Most of the residents had been evacuated before the enemy had arrived. Those stubborn few who had remained were likely charred corpses now, adding to the black smoke that furled upward from the remains of the town.
Some amongst King Hunyadi’s forces had wanted to lay in wait in Cliffordville and set a trap for the invaders. Neither the king nor his chief advisor, Captain Damia Beck, would hear of it. There would be no honor in such close fighting, and it would mean spreading their troops out into small pockets. If one side achieved the upper hand in the battle, the others would not be able to see what was happening. Hunyadi wanted his enemies to see what they were up against, when the time came.
As a trickster, Blue Jay liked the idea of springing a trap on the invaders, but he saw the king’s point. There were too many variables. Not that it was up to him in the first place. After all, he and his fellow Borderkind were only volunteer soldiers in the army of Hunyadi. More than anything, he knew that the king wanted him and his kin to be visible in the battle. In the two months since the war had broken out they had made every effort to spread the word into the south that the Atlanteans were the true enemy, that Hunyadi had not had any hand in King Mahacuhta’s assassination.