Page 92 of The Arrow and the Alder

Josephine blinked, the spell broken. Sadly. “Right.”

Together, she and Alder dragged the guard into the cell, out of immediate view. Josephine snatched the ring of keys clipped to the guard’s belt, and one by one, she tried them on Alder’s shackles while he stood silent, watching her deft hands work.

“I had no idea you were such a vocalist,” she said as she tried another key.

“Yes, well, I have many talents that you choose to ignore.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want it getting to your head.”

“Far too late for that.”

She smiled.

Click. The bindings opened, and Alder caught them before they fell, then walked over to the unconscious guard and slapped them around his wrists.

“That’s why you couldn’t undo the enchantments?” Josephine asked.

Alder nodded affirmative. “They make it impossible to accesseloit, damned nuisance.” He pulled the sword from the guard’s waist and plucked a blade from his boot, then stood and offered both to Josephine. “Take your pick.”

She took the smaller blade. “Where are the others?”

“Farther down,” Alder replied, just as a voice from the end of the hall called out, “Vosyn…? You there?”

Alder and Josephine exchanged a glance. He closed the door, and they wordlessly ducked into the shadows on either side of it. A moment later, footsteps approached and stopped before the door, and a shadow stretched over the prison cell’s floor. Which was when Alder reached through the bars, seized the figure by the tunic, jerked him forward, and slammed the guard’s head against the bars. The figure—a man—cried out and stumbled back as Alder opened the door, grabbed hold of him, and Josephine jammed the hilt of her new dagger upon the man’s head. He dropped to the ground, unconscious.

Alder glanced sideways at Josephine. “I think we work well together.”

“I agree. Keep this up, and I won’t even have to pretend to like you anymore.”

Alder laughed, but immediately regretted it, wincing.

Josephine’s smile morphed into concern, but Alder bent over and started dragging this guard beside the first—Josephine jumped in to help—and together, they locked both inside.

Alder grabbed her hand and led her down a narrow torchlit path, deeper into the prison until they reached another barred door, where they found Evora. She appeared shocked to see them, and she jumped to her feet, watching in wonder as Josephine unlocked her door.

“Aren’t you full of surprises…” Evora said with a smile, catching Alder’s gaze. “I was wondering what all of that horrendous singing was about.”

They found Rian, Serinbor, Tyrin, and Banon between the next two cells—thankfully alive, if not battered and bruised. Abecka, however, was not with them, and Alder kept searching until he found a cell with a slab of stone for a door and no visible keyhole.

This had to be it.

“Can you open it?” Josephine asked, moving to stand behind him.

“Mm…” He trailed his wide palms over the surface, his forehead creased with focus, and he closed his eyes.

It didn’t take him long to feel the enchantments. Not all of them were visible from the outside, which meant many were embeddedinsidethe stone. And these were…very intricate. Alder had not seen anything so complex in a very long time. Not surprising, he supposed, considering this belonged to acollector.

Alder would need to untangle them from the outside first, and he started with the most obvious, speaking the symbol strokes in reverse, one by one. The enchantments burned to life in turn, flaring bright and burning out, while Josephine and the others watched him work.

Fine beads of sweat formed upon Alder’s brow, but he kept going, feeling hiseloitpull and strain with every undoing, as he drew the power woven into each enchantment and sent it into the air, where it would dissipate and dissolve into the heavens, back into the vast well of Demas’s power.

There were just two left.

But every time Alder tried to get a feel for the structure of these, it was as though they’d turn away from him, making it impossible to see them clearly.

An ache pulsed behind his eyes, growing sharper with every attempt, and a soft hand pressed to his arm. Josephine’s. His eyes cracked open and found hers.

“Do you need to rest?” she whispered.

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