Page 66 of Betraying Korth

After several tense minutes, there was a very satisfyingclick, 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 loudclicksounded, 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 awink. “Enjoy the chaotic life of a hardened criminal. It has its advantages.”

Garrikand 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.

CHAPTER 29

Amerchant ship flying Ebora’s colors was anchored in the harbor, the emerald flag fluttering in the early morning breeze. A mountain of crates and barrels was piled on the boardwalk beside the ship; were they loading or unloading? No honorable merchant would ever knowingly grant an escaped convict safe passage.

“Do you see it?” Garrik’s growl of a voice came from next to me.

“Kind of hard to miss a giant ship,” I hissed back.

“The tattoo, genius.”

I squinted at the few sailors climbing the rigging.

There.

As one of the men stretched out his hand to unfurl a sail, his exposed forearm flashed the tattoo, a compass with a dagger stabbed into the center. This was no merchant ship; this was a pirate vessel disguised as one. Our underground rebellion had worked with them often enough in the past, but I’d never communicated directly with them. They were often the ones who smuggled in weapons and stolen goods to sell on the black market. I eyed the stabbed compass tattoo, well aware that my own moral compass had been skewed plenty of times before.

Did we have enough time to stowaway before the guards found us? I wondered how long it would be before the soldiers would sweep out, looking for us.

One of the sailors aboard the disguised pirate vessel had spotted us looking. “What’d ya want?” he barked.

“I wish to speak with the captain of this vessel. We’d like to barter passage,” Garrik answered.

The sailor slowly looked me up and down in a way that left me feeling vulnerable and exposed. “I’ll get him. I think he’d like to hear your proposal.”

Pirates. My skin crawled as he walked away, and I crossed my arms across my chest. If our hunch was wrong and this crew wasn’t a part of the rebellion… I had only ever been familiar with rebels in the palace but knew that other meetings were held in secret across the country, all waiting for word that the time for the civil war had begun. The precariousness of our situation was teetering dangerously close to complete failure. Korth, Odette, and Curdy would be setting sail back to Ebora anytime today; how many of my fellow rebels would be captured and questioned, possibly even tortured until they gave up information?

Only a few minutes passed, but it felt like a lifetime as my nerves jangled and I fought the urge to run and hide. Each distant voice reminded me that the guards had likely already discovered my empty cell and would be on the hunt. If this didn’t work, I didn’t know what else I would do.

The captain turned out to be a lean, middle-aged man with greasy hair tied back in a low ponytail and a golden hoop dangling from his ear. Everything about him made me want to hurl, from the slithering way he moved to the lifeless, beady black eyes that glowed with lust.

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