Fox’s Tongue and Kirin’s Bone

In his fingers sat a bronze hair pin, fashioned as a leaping fox. An extremely sturdy hair pin. One of the bigger sorts, that took up his whole palm. Big enough for the lock on his cell door, some might say.

The hardest part was waiting until he heard Shillelagh’s snores. Once all was quiet from the guard room except for that steady rumble, he set to work on picking his way free. He knew the basics—it was hard not to—but he was no expert. Every time he felt the pin bending, his heart holed up in his throat. If it broke, he was finished.

It didn’t break.

The door swung open. Aaron briefly rested his forehead against a bar.

“Thank you,” he said once more.

He left his blankets against the far wall, one balled up inside the other, so that maybe it would look like he was sleeping there still. He shut the cell door again once he was safely on its better side. Then he skulked towards the guard room, grateful for his bare feet and the silence with which he moved. Uptowners liked their shoes, but rats favored their paws.

He set his ear to the wood and listened. Nothing. Well, nothing wakeful. Slowly, slowly, he edged his head up until he could see through the barred window.

The big guard was in his chair still, his chin on his chest and a wood block clutched loosely in one hand. A griffin really was starting to take shape in it—a little chick, with curved beak and an owlish face, detailed enough that it seemed to watch him.

No one else was in the room. The cards were gone and the table’s chairs tucked in. Aaron tested the door handle. Unlocked. He tugged it slow as can be and stepped into the room on cat’s feet. The opposite door was closed, with no window to tell if there was light on the other side. He took a step towards it, easing the first door shut behind him.

On the fireplace mantle sat a familiar heap of pocket lint.

As the big guard breathed steadily on, Aaron shoved things back into his pockets. Soon he had all his medicines back, and Markus’ coin purse, which felt surprisingly similar in weight to when he’d last held it. They’d thrown out his food. Didn’t even offer it back to him, to see if he’d like to eat it; just threw it all away. His dagger was missing from the rest.

It didn’t take long to spot it, tucked into the slumbering guard’s belt.

Aaron realized, with a certain bit of relief, that he was not that stupid. Some men were, when it came down to it—he’d seen it. People grabbed for cherished possessions and died in fires. They tried to stop someone falling and fell themselves. He liked that dagger. Him and it, they had history. But he didn’t like it enough to risk his life. He was stupid enough to take a few seconds grabbing things that were easy to take, but he wasn’t about to commit suicide by guard.

He helped himself to the man’s carving knife, instead. It had fallen from lax fingers when the big fellow had slipped into sleep and sat now on the floor, all alone and unattended. Aaron crouched down and very delicately picked it up, careful the blade didn’t scrape against the stones. It was small as knives went, but it was better than nothing. He tucked it in another pocket and headed to the second door.

When he eased it shut behind him, the guard was still sleeping peacefully inside.

The hall outside was dark. Not dark like his cell had been; then he’d had the light from the guard’s room, dim but always present, casting fuzzy-edged gray shadows. This hallway was true dark, cave dark. The only light came from around the edges of the door behind him, and that didn’t go far. There were no lights lit here, and no windows to let in the moon. He felt his eyes adjusting and adjusting, but they’d be doing that forever. There were some places so dark that a human would never see.

He took a breath and tried to talk his heart down from its sudden hammering. No light was good. No light meant that there wasn’t another guard just around the bend making rounds. No light was the best thing he could have found here.

No light was something he’d hoped to never feel again. It pressed in at the edges of his mind and left him wondering whether he was moving at all when he slid a careful foot forward.

This was fine. He could do this. He just had to turn right and walk straight until he hit a wall. Turn left, then keep going until he found stairs. When the royals had dug into the plateau to make their dungeon, they hadn’t added another labyrinth to its caves. They’d added some hallways. Plain, boring, simple. Aaron kept one foot in front of the other. One hand to the wall and another held out in front of him. After a small time spent in eternity, his fingers stubbed against stone. He turned left. Soon, the dark around him started graying, and shadows crept to life, black on gray. He could see his hands again. And the stairway ahead. There was light up there.

That was an entirely different problem.

He could turn around. Try to find another way, in the dark. Or keep going forward.

Aaron crept up the stairs, staying low as he came to the final steps. The light came from the end of the hall, just outside the council chamber.

“He’s dying. We both know he’s dying,” a man said, his voice low. “Others are readying for it. Is not an army more prepared when they anticipate the strike?”

“State yourself plain, Councilor. I’m no fan of midnight meetings.” The second voice was a woman’s, old and unimpressed.

“Step inside. Please. You’ll know I speak the truth.”

Their lamp was shuttered, held by the man. Still, it was enough to show the woman’s dark skin and close-cut gray hair. The Iron Captain. A man Aaron didn’t know held the door to the council room open, and she stepped through warily.

When the door shut, Aaron was left in the dark again. It didn’t feel any better the second time around.

This time, at least, his eyes could adjust. Slowly. There were stained glass windows set high in the walls. Moonlight filtered through them, casting dark shades across the tapestries of the noble houses. The white kirin looked bloodstained under a wash of red. The griffin’s claws glittered with gold. The O’Shea dragon had a deathly pallor, overcast in cold blue.

Aaron stepped up onto the landing. In his pocket, his fingers were tight on the carving knife’s hilt.

The first turn he came to was a wide stair, leading up. A bit gaudy for his tastes. Whoever lived there wasn’t the sort he wanted to meet. The second was a narrow corridor that looked to stay on this level. As halls went, it seemed unimportant. Probably a servant’s passage. Aaron gave it a try.

He knew it led to the kitchens well before he could see. The smells gave it away. Smells that made his stomach curl in an angry fist, regretting the loss of that roll-and-a-half. The sounds his belly made were ten times the noise of his feet. He froze, but nothing stirred. Slowly he poked his head around the doorframe.

The kitchens were bathed in the warm light of fires banked low. Large iron pots hung over coals, their contents simmering until morning. Rows of bread dough lay on tables, draped with cloth, rising slowly as the castle slept. A white cat lay curled on a bench, legs tucked under its chest, eyes half-lidded as it guarded against mice and worse.

Aaron stepped cautiously into the room. Another step, and another. Yesterday’s bread had been left on the counter, ready to be a late meal for anyone passing through.

Aaron shoved a roll into his coat. He moved his pocket pharmacy around and made room for a second. A third he broke, shoving one end into his mouth with the other soon to follow. When he looked up again, the cat was yawning, and John Baker was staring at him. The boy held a tray of newly kneaded dough, ready to be added to the rest on the table. His eyes darted from Aaron to the roll to the cat. Really, to just about everywhere in the kitchen. It seemed the place was empty, save for the escaped prisoner and the baker’s apprentice, working late.

“Hello,” the enclave boy said.

“ ‘Ello,” Aaron replied, through a mouthful of bread. His free hand slipped into his pocket and found the hilt of the carving knife. He kept his stance casual-as-you-please as he wrapped his fingers around it. He didn’t want to kill the boy. Had nothing against him; could probably even be a friend to him, if they knew each other better. But he wasn’t going back in those cells.

John set the tray down on the table and wiped his hands off on a floury apron. Even without his leopard cloak, even wearing normal clothes like a proper citizen, he still couldn’t escape being white as snow. “Are you looking for the door?”

“That would be lovely.”

The boy pointed behind himself, to an adjoining room. Aaron’s eyes flicked that way, then to the blond. John stepped out of the way. Aaron edged around him. In the next room was a sturdy wooden worktable, covered in more flour than the apprentice. Ovens lined the wall, warm and waiting. At the far side was a door. Plain, simple wood. It could have led anywhere, but Aaron was rather sure it went to the courtyard. He took a few steps that way, keeping the boy in sight. John stayed in the doorway of the other room.

Aaron paused with his hand on the knob. “Is there going to be an alarm raised, soon as I’m out this?”

“Might be I was asleep when you came in,” the blond said. “Right over there, in front of the ovens. I never even stirred. An enclave boy can’t even be trusted to make bread without someone to watch him, you know.”

A certain tension eased from Aaron’s shoulders. “Might be I remember it the same.”

“Goodbye,” the boy said.

“Bye.”

Aaron eased the door open and slipped out into the courtyard.