An Ember in the Ashes
Page 85

I stare at her stonily. She knows the answer.
“You can’t know if you’d betray Izzi,” Cook says, “because you’ve never had your limits tested. The Commandant was trained at Kauf. If she interrogated you, you’d betray your own mother.”
“My mother’s dead,” I say.
“And thank the skies for it. Who knows what d-d-damage she and her rebels would have caused if she still—still lived.”
I look at Cook askance. Again, the stutter. Again, when she’s speaking of the Resistance.
“Cook.” Izzi stands eye-to-eye with the old woman, though she somehow seems taller. “Please help her. I’ve never asked you for anything. I’m asking you now.”
“What’s your stake in it?” Cook’s mouth twists like she’s tasted something sour. “Did she promise to get you out? To save you? Stupid girl. Resistance never saves anyone they can leave behind.”
“She didn’t promise me anything,” Izzi says. “I want to help her because she’s my—my friend.”
I’m your friend, Cook’s dark eyes say. I wonder, for the hundredth time, who this woman is and what the Resistance—and my mother—did to her that she would hate and mistrust them so much.
“I just want to save Darin,” I say. “I just want out of here.”
“Everyone wants out of here, girl. I want out. Izzi wants out. Even the damn students want out. If you want to leave so badly, I suggest you go to your precious Resistance and ask for another mission. Somewhere where you won’t get yourself killed.”
She stalks away, and I should be angry, but instead I’m repeating what she said in my head. Even the damn students want out. Even the damn students want out.
“Izzi.” I turn to my friend. “I think I know how to find a way out of Blackcliff.”
***
Hours later, as I crouch behind a hedge outside Blackcliff’s barracks, I’m wondering if I’ve made a mistake. The curfew drums thud and fall silent. I’ve been sitting here for an hour with roots and rocks digging into my knees. Not a single student has emerged from the barracks.
But at some point, one will. As Cook said, even the students want out of Blackcliff. They must sneak out. How else would they manage their drinking and whoring? Some must bribe the gate guards or tunnel guards, but surely there’s another way out of here.
I fidget and shift, exchanging one prickly branch for another. I can’t lurk in the shadow of this squat shrub for much longer. Izzi is covering for me, but if the Commandant calls and I don’t appear, I’ll be punished. Worse, Izzi might be punished.
Did she promise to get you out? To save you?
I promised Izzi no such thing, but I should. Now that Cook’s brought it up, I can’t stop thinking about it. What will happen to Izzi when I’m gone?
The Resistance said they’d make my sudden disappearance from Blackcliff look like suicide, but the Commandant will question Izzi anyway. The woman’s not easily fooled.
I can’t just leave Izzi here to face interrogation. She’s the first true friend I’ve had since Zara. But how can I get the Resistance to shelter her? If it hadn’t been for Sana, they wouldn’t have even helped me.
There must be a way. I could bring Izzi with me when I leave this place.
The Resistance wouldn’t be so heartless as to send her back—not if they knew what would happen to her. As I consider, I set my sights back on the buildings before me, just in time to see two figures emerge from the Skulls’ barracks.
Light glints off the fair hair of one, and I recognize the prowling gait of the other. Marcus and Zak.
The twins turn away from the front gates and pass by the tunnel grates closest to the barracks, instead heading for one of the training buildings.
I follow them, close enough to hear them speak but far enough that they won’t notice me. Who knows what they’d do if they caught me trailing them?
“—can’t stand this,” a voice drifts back to me. “I feel like he’s taking over my mind.”
“Stop being such a damned girl,” Marcus replies. “He teaches us what we need to avoid the Augurs’ mind-leeching. You should be grateful.”
I edge closer, interested despite myself. Could they be speaking of the creature from the Commandant’s study?
“Every time I look into his eyes,” Zak says, “I see my own death.”
“At least you’ll be prepared.”
“No,” Zak says quietly. “I don’t think so.”
Marcus grunts in irritation. “I don’t like it any better than you do. But we have to win this thing. So man up.”
They enter the training building, and I grab the heavy oak door just before it shuts, watching them through the crack. Blue fire lanterns dimly light the hall, and their footsteps echo between the pillars on either side. Just before the building curves, they disappear behind one of the columns. Stone grates against stone, and all goes silent.
I enter the building and listen. The hallway is quiet as a tomb, but that doesn’t mean the Farrars are gone. I make my way to the pillar where they disappeared, expecting to see a training-room door.
But there’s nothing there, only stone.
I move on to the next room. Empty. The next. Empty. Moonlight from the windows tinges every room a ghostly blue-white, and they are, all of them, empty. The Farrars have disappeared. But how?
A secret entrance. I’m certain of it. Giddy relief floods me. I found it, found what Mazen wants. Not yet, Laia. I still have to figure out how the twins are getting in and out.