Five

Our days were consumed by digging, talking, rushing back to our cells before we were discovered, and sleeping.

I slept like I'd never slept before, with all my energy focused on escape. I had a renewed motivation, a hope that I didn't expect alive in my chest. With every new inch of earth dug I moved closer to the possibility.

The light of the candle was low, the earth caking our skin like we were rodents, scrabbling in the dirt.

Thoughts of freedom drove my hands.

Hopes of seeing my father helped me ignore the hunger ripping through my belly. I thought of what I would do to Maz if I had a blade in my hand, and that kept my body moving. I was the rat, burrowing out of the trap, coming to rip out my captors' throats.

"I think we've hit a rock or something here. I can't seem to get past it." Noor's voice was strained, muffled from the tunnel. She smacked at the hard dirt with her tin cup, trying to break it up.

My heart sank. A rock, depending on how large, could take weeks to dig out.

"Is it a boulder or clay?" I tried to see around her. "Try scraping around it to see how big it is."

"It's moving!" she called back, and I released a breath. That meant we could dig it out.

"Maybe if I bang on it a little it will shake things loose." She pounded the tin against the rock with a thwap. "It's dislodging!"

"Well, that's a relief."

I began scooping up dirt again, hollowing out the excess dirt from the tunnel and emptying it into our waste buckets. I got back to Noor's cell and dumped handfuls of dirt on the floor.

A strangled scream came from the tunnel. A cloud of fresh dust erupted into Noor's cell. My stomach dropped as I rushed back to the hole.

"Noor?" I called, forgetting to lower my voice, forgetting in my panic that the guards might hear. I dove back through the hole, crawling as fast as I could through the pitch black, my eyes struggling to see her in the dark.

The candle had gone out, and no matter how many times I called, Noor didn't respond. I'd made it to the end, feeling the wall of dirt, with no Noor at all. I laid on my stomach in the dark, processing what must have happened.

Cave in.

I lurched forward, clawing at the earth. My fingernail tore against a large stone and I cried out. My throat was thick and tight, and my hands trembled as I dug.

No.

No, no, no, no.

It couldn't end like this. Not with her buried in a tunnel and me trapped in her cell and no way out.

Not when we were so close to escaping.

My fingers brushed warm, rough skin and my heart leapt to my throat. Noor's bare foot poked out of the dirt. I yanked it, not bothering to be gentle or careful, only caring about how many seconds had gone by with her face buried in the soil. I shook the earth loose from her prone body and dragged her backward through the tunnel.

Once I'd made it to the opening, I lifted her body to the floor of her cell.

"Noor, don't die now, we've still got another year of digging to do."

My hands shook as I brushed stones and debris from her mouth. Her eyes were shut, and her limbs floppy and lifeless. I pulled the hair away from her face and tried to clear the dirt from her airway.

"And if I have to do it myself that will be two years." I huffed out a deep breath, my pulse beating against my skin like a panicked bird. "And we all know I'm terrible at digging so it will take me more like four years." I pressed my ear to her chest. There was a shallow rise and fall, a small intake of breath. She was still alive. For now. I gave a delirious laugh that was more like a sob.

But then the relieved pounding of my heart stopped completely. A dark trickle of liquid pooled on the floor, pouring from the back of Noor's head from some unknown wound.

I leapt to my feet and didn't think twice about what I was going to do.

It was possible they would do nothing, that they wouldn't care whether Noor lived or died. But if the guards were even remotely invested in the fact that she may have access to unimaginable djinn power, they might actually do something to save her.

I pounded on the cell door, screaming my head off, shouting for help. They could take her to the infirmary, they could staunch the bleeding, they could prevent her from dying.

And I couldn't be here when they did.

Footsteps sounded in the hall, and distant shouts bounced off the walls. I leapt away from the door and crawled back down the tunnel, grabbing the loose piece of floor that we used to hide the escape route and closing it over my head.

Then I waited.

My chest felt tight and a cold sweat poured over me. They had to come. They had to save her.

Eventually the door opened, and the sounds of slamming and shouting filtered down to me. I pressed my hand hard to my mouth, trying not to make a single sound as guards filled Noor's cell and lifted her up off the floor.

"Shit. We have to take her to Thohfsa."

"Thohfsa will kill us if she's dead. Take her to the infirmary first." There was some grunting as they lifted her, and one of them swore.

Then it went quiet.

I huffed out a shallow breath, my heart beating so wildly I could barely focus. But there were no more sounds.

No footsteps, no talking.

I waited a long time before I lifted the slab up again and peeked into the room.

The cell was empty. Noor was gone.

But there was something else I hadn't expected.

The guards had left the door open.