Julian holds up his bedazzled hands.
"Your friend is right though,” I say to Rowland. “This place is trouble, and you’ve managed to put yourself right in the center of it.”
“We’re fine,” he insists. “Everything is going to be fine. I just need to find the right key.”
“It’s not fine!” The people in the nearby cages stir at the sound of my shrill voice. “The noctis were crawling all over the grounds when we arrived here, and more were supposed to come every day. You shouldn’t have found the grounds empty unless..."
“Unless it’s a trap,” he breathes, hands stilling on the lock.
"They're coming!” A third member of their party comes stampeding through the darkness. “It looks like the prince is with them."
My breath catches. For Rowland and his impending doom? Because I’m not ready to face Malachi yet? I don’t know. But Rowland notices, and the way he fixes his gaze upon me makes me think he knows better than I do.
Then, right before my eyes, the boy I grew up with, the one I might've even fallen in love with, disappears as the leader he's become steps into place.
Rowland draws his sword and uses it to command Julian and their other accomplice to his side.
I shove my hands through the bars. "Give me the keys!”
Without taking his eyes off the dark corridor, he tosses them to me. I lose sight of them as they fly through the shadows cast by the torches and land at my feet with a clash, rousing Mira and Elison.
As I fumble to retrieve them, I see Elison's sleepy eyes blinking over at me. "What's going—"
The dungeon door bursts open. I spin around, fumbling with the first key I can grip onto as Rowland and the others bunch together, weapons readied. I shove my hand through the bars, my wrist bending to get the right angle with the keyhole, but it's harder than I imagined it being, the angle unnatural and the keyhole sticking.
The stomping of soldiers in leather armor rings throughout the dungeon, making many of the sleeping prisoners stir.
Finally, I get the first key in place, but the lock won't turn.
Behind me, I hear my cellmates livening, Elison pushing herself off the cold ground while Mira scuttles back to the corner where she’d been when we first met.
"Are those the keys?" Elison asks over my shoulder. A gasp escapes her when she reaches my side. I don’t realize why until she finds her voice again. "Rowland? You…you’re here?"
His head might twitch in her direction, but he doesn't break focus. He can’t afford to. Noctis emerge from the dark hall, Prince Malachi at the helm.
"Well, well. What a pleasant surprise," he says with unnerving calm and arrogance. There's a dark allure to his voice that feels like slender claws tracing my spine. "Never had I dreamed that humans would be delivering themselves to us and aiding our efforts."
Rowland doesn’t flinch. But the fist he has clutched around his sword tightens. A warning.
"Stand aside,” he says. “And none of your guardsmen have to die."
The prince rolls his shoulders, his cape rippling like the quiet, distant thunder at the onset of a storm. He doesn't speak as he assesses the three-man party before him. Based on physique alone, Rowland is the only one among them who looks like he can hold his own in a fight, and Malachi seems to be drawing the same conclusion.
At least, that’s what I assume he’s thinking, until his bright eyes, as sharp as steel, land on me. I don't flinch as his gaze drifts down to the key I have wedged unsuccessfully into the lock and then back up to me.
Something changes in his expression then. Hope? But for what?
He glances to Fox’s cell opposite mine and closes his eyes. When they open, his expression has shifted again.
"Tell you what," he says. "I'll agree to your terms, no one has to die today as long as she returns the keys. You three may leave with your lives."
It's the challenge in his gaze that makes my hand falter.
What is the noctis prince up to? He can’t afford to let Rowland and his company leave. They need more humans for the Hunt. Besides, there’s no reason to agree to his terms when the noctis clearly have them outnumbered.
It’s a test, but I'm not sure what for.
"No. They’re leaving with us," Rowland says, every muscle in his back flexing. For the first time since they became under threat, he averts his gaze, bowing his head as he considers his next words, a choice weighing heavily upon him. "Keep the rest. But Charlotte and Elison are coming with me."
