“Your name, sir?” Ewen asked.
“Captain Frost.”
Ewen wrote as slowly as possible, his face screwed up as though in concentration. He couldn’t simply launch himself at the scarecrow while seated at the table; the table itself would flip over and act as a shield, if it didn’t kill the man outright. Ewen also had to make sure the man’s knife didn’t get into any of the cells. Da had told Ewen that prisoners could use any sharp object to pick a lock.
Javel had moved up to stand at the bars of Cell Three, and Ewen, who had grown accustomed to the man’s dull, expressionless face, was shocked at what he saw there now. Javel’s expression was that of a hungry dog. His eyes, deep and dark, were glued to the scarecrow’s back.
There could be no more delays. Ewen pushed back his chair and got up, pulling the ring of keys from his belt. He came around the right edge of the table, where it would be only natural for the scarecrow to move out of his way, to go in front of him. But the scarecrow merely backed away a single step and pressed up against the wall, sweeping a hand toward the cellblock.
“After you, Master Jailor.”
Ewen nodded and moved forward, his heart thumping in his chest. He warned himself to be on guard, but even so he was taken by surprise, had only the barest fraction of a second to sense the hand around his neck, the knife coming for his throat. He reached up and batted the knife away, heard it clatter to the ground in the far corner behind him.
The scarecrow jumped on Ewen’s back, wrapped his arms around Ewen’s throat and squeezed. Ewen bent double, trying to throw the scarecrow over his shoulders, but the man clung to him like a snake, his arms pressing tighter and tighter around Ewen’s neck until the cells in front of Ewen were covered with black spots that bloomed wide when he tried to focus. He sought for air, but there was none. Blood was roaring in his ears, but he could still hear the woman, Brenna, hissing encouragement. Bannaker, too, was holding the bars of his cell, hopping up and down in his excitement. And then there was Javel, silent, his eyes wide and unhappy, his hands outstretched as though to ward something off. The agony in Ewen’s chest had become a fire that burned everything now, his arms and legs and head, and he didn’t have the strength to pry the man loose.
Stinging pain arrowed up from Ewen’s palm. He thought for a moment and then realized that he was still clutching his ring of keys, gripping them hard enough to draw blood. The world had turned to a dark, bruised purple, and Ewen suddenly realized that without air to breathe, he was going to die, that the scarecrow would kill him. Da was dying, Ewen knew, but Da was dying of old age, of sickness. This wasn’t the same. Javel’s unhappy face swam before him, and without warning Ewen’s mind made one of its odd connections: Javel didn’t want this to happen. Javel was a prisoner, yes, a traitor. But somehow, he was not the scarecrow’s friend.
All of Da’s old lectures about jailbreak echoed through Ewen’s head, but before he could think about them, he had already flung the keys toward Cell Three. He watched them clang off the bars and land just between them, saw a dirty hand scrabbling for them on the ground.
Then the purple world darkened to black.
WHEN EWEN WOKE up, his head and chest were aching. His neck stung as though it had been scraped with a brick. He opened his eyes and saw the dungeon’s familiar ceiling above him, grey stones caked with mold. Da always said that whoever had built the Keep had done a good job, but it had become harder and harder over the years to prevent seepage from the moat.
What had woken him up?
The noise, of course. The noise to his right. Snarling sounds, like a dog would make. A thick thud, like a baker’s fist sinking into dough. They had lived right next to a bakery when Ewen was growing up, and he loved to stand on his toes and watch the bakers through the windows. He wanted to close his eyes and go back to sleep, just as he would have on a Sunday morning long years ago, before he began to apprentice with Da in the dungeon.
The dungeon!
Ewen’s eyes snapped open. Again he saw the familiar pattern of mold on the ceiling.
“STOP!” a woman shrieked, her voice echoing around the stone walls. It hurt Ewen’s ears. He looked to his right and saw the ghost-woman, clutching the bars, screaming. On the floor beneath her, Javel was crouched over the scarecrow, pinning him down. Javel was laughing, dark laughter that made Ewen’s arms prickle. As he watched, Javel reared back and hit the other man squarely in the face.
“I have only one question for you, Arlen!” Javel’s high cackle drowned out the woman’s scream. Another blow landed, and Ewen winced. The scarecrow’s features were awash with dripping red.
“Can you do the math? Can you, Arlen? Can you, you flesh-peddling bastard?”
Ewen struggled to sit up, though his head pounded so hard that he groaned and blinked tears from his eyes. When he opened his mouth, nothing came out. He cleared his throat and found new agony, roaring pain that barreled down to his chest and back again. But he was able to produce a weak croak. “The Queen.”
Javel paid no attention. He hit the scarecrow again, this time in the throat, and the scarecrow began to cough and gag.
Now Ewen spotted his keys, still stuck in the lock of Cell Three, dangerously close to the reach of Bannaker. He crawled over and retrieved them, then approached Javel cautiously from behind.
“Stop,” Ewen whispered. He couldn’t seem to raise his voice. His throat felt as though someone had set it on fire. “Stop. The Queen.”
Javel didn’t stop, and Ewen realized then that Javel meant to hit the scarecrow until he was dead. Ewen took a deep, painful breath and grabbed Javel beneath the arms, hauling him backward off the unconscious man. Javel snarled and turned on Ewen, attacking him with his fists, but Ewen accepted this with patience; the Queen would not wish Javel to be hurt either. Ewen certainly didn’t want to hurt him; Javel had been a good and well-behaved prisoner, and even when Ewen had thrown him the keys, he had not fled. Ewen kept his arms around Javel in a bear hug, dragging him toward the wall, not letting go even when Javel hit Ewen in his right eye, snapping his head backward and sending sparks across his vision. He threw Javel up against the wall, hard enough for the man’s head to rap against the stones. Javel groaned softly and rubbed his scalp, and Ewen took the moment of sudden silence to croak, “The Queen wants this man alive, do you hear? She wants him alive.”
Javel looked at him with bleary eyes. “The Queen?”
“The Queen wants him alive. She told me so.”
Javel smiled dreamily, and Ewen’s stomach tightened with worry. Even after Da’s many lectures about minding his size, Ewen had injured one of his brothers while wrestling, rolling Peter into a fence post and breaking his shoulder. He might have thrown Javel against the wall too hard. Javel’s voice, too, was odd, hazy, seeming to float somewhere over their heads. “Queen Kelsea. I saw her, you know, on the Keep Lawn. But she was older. She looked like the True Queen. I don’t think anyone else saw.”
“What’s the True Queen?” Ewen asked, unable to help himself. Whenever Da told fairy stories, it was always the queens that Ewen liked best.
“The True Queen. The one who saves us all.”
A shrill cackle echoed behind them, and Ewen whirled, certain that the scarecrow had only been shamming, that he had somehow recovered his knife. But it was only the woman, Brenna, clutching the bars of her cage, grinning happily.
“The True Queen,” she mimicked in a ghastly, cracked voice. “Fools. She goes to her death before the first snowfall. I’ve seen it.”