Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

E ven if I hadn’t been consumed by my own thoughts, I wouldn’t have been able to focus on the sounds from the wedding outside anyway. The buzzing from the audience grew to such a pitch that it felt like wasps had created a nest inside my brain. Whether it was because I wasn’t paying attention or because weddings go quickly once all the guests are seated, the ceremony seemed to flash by. Granted, I intentionally blocked out all the noise I could because I couldn’t bear the thought of hearing Korth exchange vows with someone as despicable as Odette. He would promise to be faithful to whomever he married, and I knew he would be, even if Odette wouldn’t return his love or his loyalty.

I ignored all of Peter Pan’s attempts to engage me in conversation, curling up into a ball instead and wishing fervently that they had sent any other girl from the rebellion. The pain of loving then losing Korth was more than I could bear. What I wouldn’t trade to revert back to my state of ignorant bliss when I assumed that all royalty were corrupt and evil. The world was so much simpler back then. Now, I would always be burdened with the knowledge that I had doomed a good man to a lifetime of heartache and misery…at least for the rest of my shortened life.

The most hidden parts of my heart wished that Korth would come rushing back and say that he had seen the light and was willing to forgive me of my treasonous acts, and that what we had was irreplaceable.

Such dreams were as real as my innocence. A prince would never be permitted to wed a convicted criminal, no matter how much we loved each other. Besides, he was married to Odette now. He would have placed a ring on another woman’s finger and sworn to love her, not me.

The thought caused me more anguish than any pain that could ever be dealt to my physical body. Too heartbroken to eat the sorry meals that the guards shoved through the bars, I lay unmoving on my bunk, ignoring how Peter Pan managed to construct some type of hook out of the debris in his cell and drag my meal trays over to himself. I didn’t think I’d ever be hungry again.

What was there to do other than eat and sleep? I had always known I would hang for my crimes, and the eternal nothingness that was my future hovered over me like a giant axe, waiting for my sentence before it fell to snuff out my life.

For two days, I barely moved. I slept as much as possible, desperate for any relief from the gnawing heartache that threatened to cleave me in two. But instead of respite, my dreams were filled of scenes from my time with Korth, mocking the temporary happiness I’d been allowed before it was so cruelly snatched away.

The pitiful meals were hardly tempting, and I ignored them more often than not. After the first day, Peter Pan must have grown bored with his game of trying to scoot my bowl of stew into his own cell or else took pity on me and hoped I would eat more if he left it. Twice, he tried to poke me with his makeshift hook that looked like spoons from our meals lashed together with bits of fabric ripped from his shirt sleeves. I irritably swatted it away each time. What, did he expect that I would want to chat about the weather? How was I supposed to find a way to help the rebellion when I was trapped in a cell? The only way I could have communicated with Garrik, whose cell was around the corner from mine, would be to shout, and doing so would reveal any plan we concocted to all the guards.

Everything around me looked to be floating in a haze, slowly shifting in and out of focus. My parents would hear of my failure and subsequent imprisonment. They would carry on their life’s mission without me, and I would sit in this cell until I died.

I had no visitors, but Peter Pan did. Tess came to talk to him on the second day after Korth’s wedding. Seeing her only reminded me that she would never be my sister. She would have comforted Korth and listened to Odette tell her all of my sins.

The sound of their conversation drifted over to me, but I did my best to tune them out. I didn’t have the mental acuity to debate Peter’s twisted morals. A humorless snort flared my nostrils. Who was I to lecture anyone about twisted morals? I had committed a dozen crimes, all in the name of subjective justice.

“Dahlia? Dahlia!” Tess’s insistent voice finally punctuated my stupor, and I turned to stare at her shadowy silhouette in the ghostly, flickering dungeon light. “Peter said you aren’t eating very much.”

I couldn’t even work up the energy to shrug. “What’s the point? I don’t need a lot of energy to sleep, and I’m going to die here anyway.”

“Korth doesn’t want you to die.”

This time, a real laugh, albeit a choked and hoarse one, escaped from my dry throat. “He was the one who threw me in here.”

“But he doesn’t want you to die.”

“And you didn’t want Peter to die, either. So now he and I get to live out the rest of our miserable lives here.” Korth would never forgive me, and I couldn’t blame him. My attempt at making a difference in the world had failed, and now I had nothing else to do but wait for the end, no matter how desperately I wanted to escape. I wasn’t willing to corrupt Tess by trying to convince her to release me.

“I don’t know if she actually heard anything you said while she was over there feeling sorry for herself,” Peter’s sly voice contributed. I’d never been so thankful I didn’t have a younger brother until that moment. Teenage boys were the worst.

“I was just telling Peter that Korth and Odette didn’t get married after all.”

That got my attention. With a sudden surge of energy, I slid my legs off my wooden bunk and sat up. The world spun, but I narrowed my eyes and dug my nails into the heels of my hands, forcing myself to focus. “What?”

“He called off the wedding. I thought you’d want to know.”

My jaw hung slack. The tiniest flicker of hope flared in my chest. Had I somehow gotten through to him? Was it that he still loved me, somewhere in the deepest recesses of his heart?

“When?”

“Right before they were supposed to get married. Everyone was already sitting down and everything. Odette was really mad.”

“I bet she was. What did Korth say about it?”

“He said that there are too many things he isn’t sure of, but he won’t talk about you with anyone. Not even me.”

“What are they going to do now?”

“Korth’s taking Odette back to Ebora tomorrow. He said it was the least he could do, but I think he wants to see for himself what it’s like. That was one of the reasons he called off the wedding.”

If I’d had any more energy, I would have laughed out loud. Raquel knew how to put on a front. Any time a visiting dignitary came to call, he would send soldiers to clear the streets of the beggars. To anyone from the outside looking in, Ebora would appear to be the model of an industrious, prosperous kingdom, with a thriving economy and content citizens, even though nothing could be farther from the truth.

My vision spun faster. Odette was returning home, where my parents were, and Curdy knew all the identities of the others in the rebellion. He had likely already revealed all our names to Odette. Once she got back, she would…

I nearly blacked out.

My parents and everyone in the rebellion would be in grave danger when they realized our coup had failed. Odette would report everyone and have them brutally executed. I refused to believe that Korth—righteous, upstanding Korth—would stand idly by and watch such treatment, but even if he wanted to intervene, what could he do in a kingdom that wasn’t his own?

“He didn’t tell me,” I whispered. “I didn’t know they didn’t get married.”

“He was told he’s not allowed to see you anymore. His advisors said you would just lie to him again. Well, they said some other stuff too, but I don’t want to repeat it.” She tapped her foot nervously against the floor. “I don’t believe what they said.”

Peter spoke up and drew Tess’s attention back to himself. “Just like you didn’t listen when they told you to have me executed, and now we’re friends. I’m glad you think for yourself. What books did you bring today?”

I slumped back, more defeated than I’d ever felt in my life. What purpose did I have now? The entire world turned hazy and blurred as I again zoned out of everything going on around me. I couldn’t even muster the energy to try to deter Tess from teaching Peter to read. From the quick snatches of conversation that occasionally permeated my stupor, I could tell he had a quick mind.

Was that the only thing in my future? Reading while I waited to hear my family’s fate, knowing I was unable to warn them? I didn’t even have the luxury of visitors like Peter did. He punctuated their reading lesson by making anything that Tess handed him through the bars—bookmarks, a spoon from his last meal, and a silver coin—disappear with clever sleight of hand. Tess’s mouth hung open in amazement each time, earning her a few smiles that almost looked genuine from him. If I hadn’t known he was a hardened criminal with a knack for manipulating people, I could have pictured him as a doting older brother.

“Well done, Peter!” Tess chirped after a lengthy lesson during which they read pages back and forth to each other. “I think you’re ready to move up to a little more difficult of reading material. What do you want me to bring tomorrow?”

“What other books do you have?” he asked, sounding far too comfortable talking to Tess for my liking. No prisoner would ever have any positive feelings toward his captor, or else I would have ventured to say that they sounded like friends. I could only imagine what horrors would await my family and friends back in Ebora. Myself too, if I was ever shipped back on a criminal transport boat.

“All sorts,” she answered eagerly. “History, adventures, romances, myths and legends, even cookbooks.”

“Any battle strategy ones?”

“Lots of those. Korth sometimes studies them, but he reads the ones on policy and laws more often. Or bridges.”

“I’d be interested to read some battle strategy ones. Or some adventure stories. Just nothing with pirates. I’m somewhat averse to those.”

“Deal! I’ll bring them tomorrow after my harp lesson.”

“And I will wait for you right here until then. I promise.”

Tess laughed. “Good night, Peter. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She stopped outside my cell. “Good night, Od—Dahlia. I’ll see you tomorrow, too. Do you want me to bring you a book as well?”

I shook my head, mind still full of the fact that Korth and Odette hadn’t gotten married. I didn’t want to read. I had spent so long plotting and scheming every waking minute that I didn’t know what else to do with myself. How was I supposed to scheme my way out of a locked iron cell, sneak out of town, and traverse an ocean without a ship and without being detected? It was just as easy as instigating a civil war now that my enemies knew my plans.

Tess bobbed on the balls of her feet outside my cell door. “Is there anything else I can do for you? Do you need another pillow?”

I shook my head. “Just tell Korth to be safe; I really don’t want him to get hurt.”

“Hey.” Peter Pan’s voice, devoid of its usual mischievous tone, pierced through my stupor after Tess left. “Don’t give up.”

Slowly, I rolled my head around to gaze at him. He was leaned up against the bars separating our cells, staring at me with the ghost of a smile on his face.

“How do you suggest I do that?”

“Think happy thoughts.”

“I don’t have any.”

“Everyone does if they think hard enough.”

“I don’t want to.”

Peter Pan stared hard at me for a long minute. “Many things can be taken from you when you’re in prison, but no one can take your thoughts. It’s only when you let someone else have control over those that you finally lose.”

Anger flared red-hot. Did this stupid little boy think it was just that simple? That I could choose to be happy? He had no idea. “Thoughts won’t get me out of this cell. Thoughts won’t free the people who are enslaved in Ebora. Thoughts won’t make Korth—” I broke off, unwilling to discuss my feelings for Korth with anyone. If only those could be buried so deep that they would never resurface again.

“No, but if you wallow in misery, you’ll never be of use to anyone, including yourself. So you had some bad things happen to you. Everyone does. You can either have a bad life because of it, or a good life in spite of it, but it’s your life; live it however you want.”

“I can’t live it however I want. I’m stuck here and always will be.” I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes.

“Do you want to escape?”

I lifted my head and shot him a withering stare. “No,” I drawled. “Being locked in a prison cell is my life’s ambition. Not all of us can just think happy thoughts and have it magically make things better.”

Peter smirked and reached down to pull two small items from beneath his bunk. They looked like the soup spoons we were sometimes given, but he had shaved both the metal handles into tiny, thin rods. One had a sharp point while the other looked like a tiny hook.

“But thinking happy thoughts gives your mind the freedom to plan the future rather than wallowing in self-pity. Without hope, despair and learned helplessness traps people better than chains ever could.”

With a surreptitious glance up and down the corridor, he reached his arms through the iron bars to the lock that faced the opposite wall. Peter closed his eyes in concentration, inserted the picks into the lock, and began fiddling with it.

After several tense minutes, there was a very satisfying click , and his door swung open. My mouth hung agape as I stared at him, lost for words.

Instead of running off down the hall and disappearing from view, Peter held a finger to his lips, crouched beside my cell door, and picked my lock too. A minute later, another loud click sounded, and my heart leapt into my throat, wondering if the guards would appear.

With a great deal of dramatic flourishing of his hands, Peter bowed and gestured for me to step out of my iron cell. “Your freedom.”

I could hardly breathe. This was too good to be true. What was he playing at? “What…”

“Right. You came in with another friend. Come on.”

Peter also released Garrik from his cell, then handed him the lockpicking tools. “I suggest you practice,” he said. Then without another word, Peter turned and re-entered his cell, shutting the door behind him with a metallic grinding sound.

“But…don’t you want to escape too?” I asked in bewilderment.

The red-headed young man quirked an eyebrow. “Didn’t you tell Tess to leave me here to rot? Besides, if I wanted to escape, I’d have done so long before now. I wouldn’t wait around, boo-hooing to be saved.”

“You want to stay in prison? Why?”

A wicked smile flashed across Peter’s face. “I have my reasons but am not at all compelled to share them with you. And you better hurry before they find you. Don’t you have a princess to kill or more treason to commit or something?” He flashed a wink. “Enjoy the chaotic life of a hardened criminal. It has its advantages.”

Garrik and I wasted no time sneaking out of the prison, ducking out of sight and dodging into the shadows any time there was so much as the thought of the jingle of keys. It seemed that I didn’t draw a single breath as we crept out of the prison and into the dark gardens. I’d expected to feel weak after days of barely eating, but my freedom acted as a stimulant just as effective as my early hatred of Odette, and I managed to trail after Garrik with no difficulty.

“I say we get down to the docks and find a ship to stowaway on,” Garrik breathed into my ear, nodding toward the port. Before I could agree, a familiar profile, silhouetted against the moon, came into view and sat on a stone bench facing the footbridge.

Korth.

I froze, praying that he hadn’t heard us. Garrik dropped down to his belly, silently slithering along in the grass like a snake, using the hedge as a shield until he reached the far side of the courtyard. He looked back, waving me on, but I couldn’t move. Korth had reached into his jacket and withdrawn the portrait of us at the masquerade. He ran his thumb over it and let out a quiet sob.

My face screwed up as I averted my eyes and followed Garrik. It was better this way.