Page 27 of High Stakes

There were a handful of other prisoners being held in the dungeon. All male, emaciated, and filthy to the point that only the whites of their eyes looked clean. None of the others approached as we walked by and none spoke. The bird-faced man stopped in front of the last cell on the right and unlocked the door, waving me inside.

“May I ask where you’re from?” he asked.

“Just outside Edenshire,” I answered evasively, stepping into the cell.

He closed the door and locked it with an iron key strung around his neck. “Curious… I’ve never seen you in town.”

I turned around and peered at the strange man through my cell bars. “Do you know everyone who lived there?” I countered.

“I suppose not,” he admitted. “But then you must know Father Bernard?”

“Yes, I knew him,” I lied.

“Did you know him well?” the man probed, his eerily familiar eyes peering at me through the bird-like mask.

Shrugging, I looked around my cell as if critiquing the accommodations. “Well enough.”

“When did you see him last?”

“I couldn’t say exactly…” Because I had no idea who Father Bernard was...

Obviously not taking a hint, the man persisted with his line of questioning. “Days ago? Perhaps a fortnight?”

I stood up straighter, lifting my chin confidently. “That sounds right.”

I could hear the man smile beneath the mask a second before he pounced on my latest answer. “Actually, it doesn’t, because Father Bernard was the first in Edenshire to die of the plague. He brought it into the town, having contracted it while visiting Darford Parrish. He died at the end of spring. I know this, because I was the one who buried him.”

Spinning on his heel, the man walked quietly toward the door at the end of the corridor. Taking the torch with him, the only source of light, he disappeared into the shadows, the sounds of his footsteps trailing up and away into the castle. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness I noticed a few tiny, square windows that let in the receding evening light and fresh air, though not enough of either.

The lunatic clapped excitedly from his cell, gripping the bars and forcing his head between two of them. “You’re a liar!” he cooed. He repeated the phrase with glee for an hour before wearing himself out and falling asleep with his head propped against the bars that held him.

Defeated, I sat on my cot and rewrapped the shawl around my neck, pulling my knees into my chest and my bare feet off the cold floor when the sounds of scuttling rats reached my ears.

Chapter Eleven

I woke up shivering, though I realized with a start that my suit was working again. I could feel the warmth leeching into my skin, but bone-deep cold had set in and I shook uncontrollably. The male closest to me, located a few cells away, asked if I was okay, but I couldn’t stop the chattering of my teeth long enough to answer. I tried to hold my eyes up long enough so he could see I was fine.

The insane man woke early and began singing imaginative songs he’d made up; most of them were about me being a liar, though he sprinkled in some lyrics about us all dying and being eaten by Lord Enoch’s rats, which I thought was a nice touch. The other men took turns trying to shush him, telling him to leave me alone, but he never listened. He happily crooned until midday, banging a loosened rock from the wall onto the stone floor, trying to dig a hole beneath the bars of his cell door, claiming he was on his way to rescue me. “I’ll let you out of there,” he promised, refocusing his efforts.

When I went to pull my shawl tighter, I noticed the tech in my hand was off again. Rolling my eyes, I tapped the skin near the containment cell. The circuits illuminated for a few seconds, but then the blue-green glow faded away into nothing.

I had to fix it somehow. The only way I could get out of there was if it came on and stayed on. If my tech failed, there was no way I was leaving thirteen forty-eight. With a spinning head and feeling too sick to think clearly, I worried I might have actually contracted the plague and wouldn’t be given the chance to go home at all.

Maru’s brows pinched tightly together. I raised my head from the mat just long enough to reassure him. That was when Abram threw his blunt stake, and the rules that governed sparring, out of the ring.

He rushed to his corner and dropped to his stomach, grabbing two sharpened stakes. “Let’s pretend this is a real fight,” he tempted.

I pushed myself up and walked across the springy floor, hand out. “Fine.”

“Eve,” Maru warned. I should have listened.

Instead, I wrapped my fingers around the stake and swiped it to the right, barely missing Abram’s throat. “Let’s pretend,” I fired back. I’d had enough of his self-righteous bullshit.

He thrust out, trying to skewer my stomach, but I jumped back just in time, sucking air in and making my stomach concave enough that he missed. The momentum made him lose his balance.

I lightly jabbed him in the back. A kill shot. He knew it. When he whirled around, his lip snarled, I knew he wasn’t playing anymore... if he ever was.

He lashed out again and again until I was backed in the corner, and then he grabbed my hair. Ripping a chunk of it out, he threw me to the ground and landed a punch on my cheek. I heard Maru shouting, but all I could focus on was Abram. Stake raised high, he plunged it down, aiming straight for my heart. I couldn’t twist away or buck him off. He was too heavy. Too strong. I couldn’t breathe.

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