Chapter 59
Saffron
Saffron’s bones were made of iron. Her entire body was rusty. Adrenaline was the only thing keeping her from creaking to a complete stop.She’d been apart from the leaf mask too long. She tried not to think about the fact that she had no idea where it was—in the tunnels, Cartimandua’s pocket, anywhere. Roarke was grimacing and green with pain. Jane helped Kiri to her feet. Caradoc was already standing, sword ready.
They were alive. For now.
There were cages all around them. Cerberus bit at the bars, growling and barking. The ground shook and sand trickled from the ceiling. They’d landed in the hypogeum under the amphitheatre.
When the first soldier burst out of the shadows, Caradoc stopped her from stabbing him. Her knife arm felt clumsy and it sent a new terror shivering through her. “Sympathiser,” Caradoc explained curtly. There were two tiny lines scratched into the button of his cuff.
“Liang,” the soldier introduced himself. “I can get you out but we have to hurry.”
“Where do they keep the Jacks?” Caradoc explained as they ran down a dusty tunnel. Even now he was a Greencoat.
“There are Jacks are in the yard,” Liang pointed at the tunnel offshoot. “They’re going to be paraded through the amphitheatre between Trials.”
“Thank you, Liang.” Caradoc stopped at the mouth of the tunnel leading to the courtyard. “Get them out. I’ll get the Jacks.”
“I’m going with you,” Roarke said through clenched teeth.
“What are you going to do? Bleed on them?” Saffron snapped.
“She’s right,” Caradoc said. “You’re wounded. And it has to be now. Cartimandua will keep the Trials going because she can’t admit we got out. She’ll pretend it was planned that way. She’ll send soldiers, but she won’t be able to spare as many as she’d like. Go. I’ll meet you at the tree on Charles Street.”
“Don’t go south,” Saffron said. “They blocked most of those roads during the last riot.”
“I’m going with you then,” Jane said, separating from the group.
“Like hell you are.”
“You need me,” she said simply, before darting away. Caradoc followed. There was no time to argue. No time to get out if they didn’t hurry.
Saffron wanted to follow them on principle, to know that a Green Jill had helped release the Directorate’s precious Green Jack prisoners, but she also knew she wasn’t quite fast enough. She might trip over her own feet and stab herself in the face. Magic chained her, dragged her down, and she couldn’t fight it with her fists or her knives. She tasted anise, like she had the first time she’d worn the leaf mask, and more alarmingly, salt. Roarke slid his good arm around her waist. “I’m fine,” she mumbled.
“I’m the one losing blood and I still look better than you,” he said. “Take the help, Foxfire.” She did, mostly because she didn’t have an option. They held each other up, stumbling after Liang. Livia and Jane’s friend Kiri were close behind. Liang shoved them into a small closet just as more soldiers raced past.
“Clear,” he said. “But grab those tunics behind you. With any luck you’ll look like amphitheatre groundskeepers.”
Saffron pulled the uniform over her head. It smelled like disinfectant and animal sweat. Roarke hissed when the movement pulled his wound open. They climbed stone steps up into a small alcove. A soldier glanced at them from the archway leading to the courtyard. Liang nodded. “Cerberus got loose again. Just taking them to the healers.”
The soldier turned away, more interested in the fight beginning on the sand. The crowd stomped their feet. The noise shivered through Saffron’s teeth. Liang took them though a hidden door and they slipped out onto the road. There was no one to see them or to cry the alarm. The streets were deserted. Even the birds were silent.
They turned down a lane littered with acorns from a nearby oak tree. Saffron wanted to curl up into the branches. She knew it was a consequence of the leaf mask, knew no oak tree could help her without it. And then the oak tree surprised her.
Killian, knowing her shortcuts as well as she did, came around the other side. He had a black eye and a broken hand wrapped with a makeshift bandage. Relief flooded through her so deeply she felt sick with it.
The others reacted somewhat differently.
Killian wrapped himself around Saffron like a turtle’s shell, until she was tucked against the alley wall and protected from the various knife and spear points digging into his back. She turned her head slightly to look at him, slurring slightly.
“Took you long enough.”