Page 111 of My Noble Disgrace

Cael spoke into the radio. “They will not be unchained until you send back every last weapon and piece of technology, including what you’re using to spy on us.”

“Can I take the keys to their chains?” I asked.

Cael ignored me, roughly pushing the men into the boat.

I squeezed in among Keane and the four men, surrounded by the smell of prison sweat.

“The keys,” I said again to Cael.

He ignored my request and shoved the boat into the water, leaving me with no way to set the men free.

With no other choice, I rowed across the waves toward the boat, my face flushed with anger. Cael’s sudden change of heart didn’t make sense—especially since he didn’t have a heart. I couldn’t figure out what he was playing at. Something wasn’t right, but I wanted to get this over with and rest assured that I’d successfully saved Keane and his men from a lifelong prison fate.

My arms burned from the effort of rowing the heavy boat, but eventually, the men cheered as we found ourselves at the port side of the boat where the ladder hung. The men climbed clumsily upward with their wrists cuffed, unable to get too far from each other with their shackles on.

Keane waited at the end of the line, catching his balance as the boat rolled and tilted. Even in his awkward, undignified state, he flashed me a confident smile.

I smiled back, then followed them up to the deck.

Vaughn and the others on the boat greeted their fellow outlaws, pulling them up and thumping them on the back.

“Do you have keys?” Vaughn asked.

I shook my head. “I tried. I’m sorry.”

“No worries,” said Keane. “We’ll find something.”

Keane had accomplished nothing that he came to Cambria for. He was headed toward freedom, at least, so I hoped that counted for something, but I wondered if he’d be satisfied with this compromise.

Vaughn lifted his spyglass.

“Mind if I take another look?” I asked.

He handed me the double spyglass and I looked out to shore, searching for Cait and Lachlan again, but there was no sign of them. I couldn’t find the strange shape I’d seen earlier either.

I didn’t know what made me more nervous: the fact that I’d seen it in the first place or that it was nowhere to be seen now. Dread gnawed at me, but I tried to stay calm. I’d soon take the rest of the weapons back in the rowboat with me, and, because Cael had been the one to change the plan and I’d done nothing but comply, as far as he knew, he’d have to let me into the arsenal.

“You got your men,” said Cael through the radio. “Now put the weapons in the boat.”

A pile of weapons already sat on deck and the men started for it.

Keane and the other chained-up men roamed over the deck, searching for something to set them free.

“Wait,” said Keane. “There’s got to be something in these weapons that’ll get these cuffs off.”

“We gotta return ‘em,” said Vaughn. “The sooner we leave the better.”

Unlike Keane, he knew Cael’s true plans.

The pile of weapons still sat on the deck. I leaned down to grab a giant gun and put it in the boat, but Keane stopped me. “Just let us get free first, okay?”

Before I could speak, Cael came on the radio. “I’m waiting. Send back the weaponsnow.”

Vaughn searched the pile. “I can’t find anything. We gotta sail.”

“Come on!” Keane pulled up his pant leg to show a heavily bruised and raw ankle. “We need these weapons. I don’t want to live like this, chained up to you lot for the rest of my life—no offense.”

“None taken,” one muttered.

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