Chapter 45:

"You can't be serious."

Aveline opened one bleary eye. "I am, quite."

"You would rather lose a finger than suffer a mere chest wound?" Ari folded his arms. "Not me. I'd like to keep my thumbs, thank you very much."

"Please. Let's not pretend that your chest wound would be half as painful as my chest wound," Aveline countered, and he laughed.

"Fair enough."

The stalled dripping of water from a leak somewhere in their dungeon had resumed its staccato rhythm. Aveline reckoned they had been locked up for a few hours, give or take. She and Ari had managed to loosen their cuffs a while ago, thanks to her hairpins— the Verignes guards were idiots.
Aveline grimaced as she massaged the raw skin around her wrist; irritated further by the cold metal when she and Ari had been dragged off to their underground cell. Aveline hadn't thought they even had a prison in the Capital city, and yet, here she was.

Ari knocked the toe of his boot against hers. "Alright, I have a final question. It's quite a good one."

"You have a bit of blood, there," Aveline told him, jerking her chin towards Ari's cream-colored shirtsleeves; the cross-ties open at his chest to compensate for the heat. He was sweating slightly, his curls sticking to his forehead, but it could have been from earlier exertion.

"It's not mine," Ari said with distaste as he wiped half-heartedly at the rust-colored spot on the fabric. "Nicked one of Camille's guards in the arm, I did— right before he leapt on top of me."

"Oh, I forgot he jumped on you! Did you hear me laughing? I laughed when that happened."

"I reckon everyone in the courtyard heard you laughing, right as the guards dragged us away. They probably all thought you were some sort of maniacal demon."

Aveline felt her lips curve into a smirk. "Yes, well, according to Camille, I am."

"It comforts me to see that you can make light of this terrible situation."

"Yes, well, I only hope our distraction bought Inez and the crew enough time to steal our reward money back."

Ari snorted. "It'd better have. I don't know if I'll be able to wash this stain out."

"If she managed to apprehend the money and escape with the crew and children, I would be quite content. With any luck, they'd be far out of Verignes by now."

"Inez is smart. I'm certain she escaped as fast as she could." Ari lifted a bruised shoulder, dropped it. "That's what Jamie did, anyway."

Aveline glanced at Ari as he stared into the damp stone, lost in thought.

"What ever happened?" She stretched out her legs, let her head fall back with a gentle thump against the wall behind her. "Last year. When you two quarreled. What was the reason?"

"It's not important. Nothing."

Aveline waited.

Ari's throat bobbed. "I told her the truth; that she was trying to fix me and that I couldn't be fixed. We couldn't agree and she left."

"Hm." Aveline ran her thumb along her bottom lip, trying to catch any smeared smudges of lip rouge. "I almost feel as if there's a perspective that neither of you have considered."

"Oh?" Ari dropped his hand from his hair. "And what is that?"

"I don't know, Ari, but I've watched you spend your entire life in a constant attempt to fix everything, yourself included. Have you ever thought maybe... maybe you don't need to be fixed?"

Ari stared at her for a moment, his expression inscrutable, which immediately made her feel self-conscious.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"No, what is it?" She pressed, and he shrugged.

"Well, that was a strange thing to say."

The grin in his voice made Aveline giggle. "No, you just think it's a strange thing to say."

"Because it is!" He protested, chuckling, and things almost felt normal, until she remembered they were in prison for murdering the Earl of Verignes.

"Do you think our plan will work?" he murmured, voicing her thoughts.

"Do we even have a plan?" Truthfully, Aveline hadn't thought of much of a plan beyond causing a scene with Camille's guards so that the crew could steal Ari and Aveline's confiscated reward money from the king. ("It's hardly stealing if we earned it." Ari had scoffed.) She'd hoped it would last them a while just in case anything terrible happened or if she and Ari never made it back. But then, the crew had been quietly stealing valuables from countless different courtiers during their entire stay at the Capital. (They were supposed to have been gathering evidence.)

"Sure. Break out of here. Find Lyla. Escape." After a pause, Ari added: "I'll admit— we have had better plans. But someone should be here to check up on us in... two hours, give or take. They'll be two, perhaps three— we can overtake them, surely."

Aveline rolled her head to the side to give him a look. A small purple bruise outlined his cheekbone, and the glaring thought resurfaced in Aveline's mind that none of this would have happened if not for her.

"Don't." Ari pulled off his boot and shook it over the ground. A thin pebble tumbled out. He glanced at her. "Whatever it is you're thinking. Don't think it."

"This is my fault, you know-"

"No." His eyes glowed ebony on hers. "It isn't. It's Camille's fault," Ari muttered, "the pigeon-livered little twat."

"Yes, well, hers too."

"I won't argue with you on this subject now, Aveline. You should rest. You look pale."

Aveline felt pale. Her skin was a bit clammy, but they hadn't been given water— she wasn't certain if Camille was waiting them out, or planned to force her into the ocean at some point— either way, she clearly intended on making their imprisonment as uncomfortable for them as possible. But Aveline needed water, more than she used to. And she hadn't taken Dahlia's medicine in a few days. She thought she had a fever, but she wasn't certain.

Ari was chipper as he spoke confidently of their escape from Verignes and returning to the ship, but Aveline knew she would soon have to make her decision, and she still wasn't sure what it would be.

She didn't have time to figure it out, because a second later, the chains outside their door began to rattle. (It was bolted from the outside, or else they would have picked it hours ago.)

Aveline leapt to her feet, ignoring the lurch of her stomach as she did so, and Ari stood. A big, burly man strode in with a small clay jug. Behind him there were three other guards with their sleeves rolled up, exposing their beefy forearms.

"Water for the prisoners," the tall man declared in a scratchy Verignes accent. He halfheartedly pitched the jug; liquid sloshed out onto the floor. "Whoops," he giggled, and the guards behind him joined in his laughter.

Aveline snatched the empty jug from his hands and smashed it over his head before he could react. The other three made shouts of surprise as he hit the floor, unconscious, along with the brown shards of clay. They each rushed towards them, and Ari yanked one of them forward by the shoulder and drove his knee into the man's stomach.

Aveline faced the second, her abdomen automatically tensing as he growled at her. She caught sight of a dagger gleaming in his belt, but he followed her gaze and snatched her hand as she reached for him, enclosing it in a crushing grip. Her tendons screamed in pain as he yanked her fingers backwards, forcing her to lurch topple forward in pain.

He seized her by the back of her neck, like a dog, and Aveline eyed the skin at his wrist. It was dirty and thick, and she blanched as she sank her teeth into it. He roared and veered back, dropping her hand, and as he bent over to nurse his injured hand Aveline managed to slip his dagger from his exposed belt. She knocked the dull end of the knife into his forehead, hard, and swept her legs underneath him as he fell to the ground in a dizzy haze.

Avelien straightened, wiping a sweaty strand of hair from her forehead. Ari was panting in front of her, the remaining two guards unconscious at his feet. A trickle of blood ran down his scraped fists.
Aveline brandished her guard's dagger with a throbbing hand and beamed.

"Good," he breathed. "What should we do with them?"

Aveline glanced down at the first guard— unconscious and dozing happily on the floor, with tiny snot bubbles oozing out of his nose. But before Aveline could reply heavy footsteps sounded from outside.

Ari cursed and grabbed her wrist. "Run."

They sprinted in the opposite sound of the noise. Aveline had no idea where she was going. She had been unconscious for most of the time the guards had hauled her away, but their prison seemed to have been located in some sort of tunnel under the city. Orange flames flickered in the lanterns on the walls as they scurried down the path.

By the time she could no longer hear steps behind her, Aveline had lost all sense of direction and her adrenaline was quickly draining out of her. They reached a small, cave-like room, and Ari stopped to breathe, catching his hands on his knees. Beside them there was a small pocket in the wall, just large and dark enough to hide two people.

"We should..." Ari gasped, "rest."

She wondered if he said it more for his benefit or for hers as she swayed precariously on her feet, and then Ari was pulling her towards the hole, and Aveline's eyelids grew heavy. Ari was saying something to her, but her legs had given out, and Aveline thought she would figure it out later as she collapsed on the soft clay beneath her.

-

She awoke to a noise.

It was dark, and the soft rock beneath her was still hard and muggy. It was hot- so hot, in fact, and there was something dense and leathery draped across her chest. Her head throbbed as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to her temples.

"Damn," Aveline mumbled, wincing. Her throat felt sticky. She was nestled uncomfortably in the wall crevice that she and Ari had found. The skirts of her gown were torn, her bare legs limp and dangling over the opening. She untangled an arm from the blanket of fabric atop her and touched her forehead. Warm.

Across from her, Ari was still awake. He wordlessly took hold of the sleeve of his coat and pulled it off of Aveline's shoulders.
"You were shivering." His eyebrows were furrowed.

Aveline cleared her throat and sat up, blinking away the grogginess. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

There it was again— a faint scratching sound. Aveline's heart skipped a beat. She scrambled to yank her legs back into the hole and underneath her lap just as a tall, feminine figure in burst into the tunnel. Aveline recognized the shadow of a familiar braid and held her breath, but they'd already been spotted.

"There you are!"

**who do you guys think it is??
Also... about two chapters left. I'M SO EXCITED.**