Page 32 of The Rebel and the Rose
Plink.
Plink.
Plink.
There came a low, furious clacking. By the time Sera realized it was her own chattering teeth, she was finally coming to. Her cloak was gone, her bare arms half frozen. Beneath her cheek, the ground was cold and damp. Roughened stone scraped her as she turned. Sitting up was astruggle. Everything hurt. Her nose. Her jaw. Her wrists. Sheached. Her hands were bound in front of her, the roughened rope chafing her skin.
Rising with a grunt, she came to her knees. It was dim here, almost black. In the distance, an oil lamp flickered on a stone wall. But there were bars between Sera and that solitary kernel of light. Thick metal bars.
She was in a cell.
Great.
She whipped her head around, regretting the quickness of the movement. Her head screamed in protest, her nose so blocked it was surely broken. The cell was small and windowless, and yet the smell of the sea seeped through the walls, borne on a howling wind. Salt water dripped from the ceiling and pooled in puddles around her.
This place was too damp to be the catacombs.
And Hugo’s Passage didn’t smell like this… like piss and sweat and brine. A dungeon, then. A hell she had not been to before. She scoured her aching mind for fragments of her last memory: Theo and Bibi shouting as a group of men descended upon them. Triumphant guffaws, the errant glint of a sword, the heel of a tall black boot… then the rattle of carriage wheels over stone.
Panic shot through Sera. Where the hell was she? And where were her friends?
‘Hello?’ she croaked out. Herthroatached. She could feel bruises there too. ‘Val? Theo? Bibi?’
There was scrabbling nearby, followed by a pained grunt. ‘Sera? Are you here?’
Theo! Theo was here. And he sounded just as sore as she was.
‘I’m here!’
‘Are you all right?’ His voice was a low rasp.
‘Been better.’ Inching towards the bars, she laid her forehead against them, letting the cool iron soothe the pain along the bridge of her nose. When she spoke again, her voice carried a little further, into the narrow walkway and towards his neighbouring cell. ‘What happened?’
She hated how her voice broke on the question, like she was no more than a child cowering under her bed. She wanted to be strong for her friend, but she was aching and frightened and failing not to panic.
She heard him shuffling on the other side of the wall, making his way to the bars. ‘Whatever the hell that was, we survived it,’ he said, steady now, playing the role of protector. ‘And whatever else comes, we’ll survive that too.’
She closed her eyes, willing a flicker of courage into her heart.
‘I glimpsed the royal crest when they shoved me into the carriage,’ said Theo. ‘Right before they knocked me out. Looks like we’re in one of the king’s dungeons. By the smell of seaweed coming through the walls, I’d bet we’re under the Summer Palace.’
South-west of Fantome, then. Near the mouth of the Verne.
‘Bibi? Val?’ Sera’s voice cracked from the strain.
No answer.
Theo rattled the bars of his cell. ‘BIBI!’ he bellowed, the call echoing around them and reaching into the shadowy bowels of the dungeon. ‘VAL!’
‘SHUT THE FUCK UP!’ a gruff male-sounding voice called back.
‘Where are they?’ hissed Sera.
‘Probably still out cold,’ said Theo, a note of hope in his voice when he added, ‘Or maybe they got away. I never saw them get dragged in. Did you?’
‘I think I heard Bibi scream. I don’t know about Val.’ It had all happened so fast. Sera’s lips twisted. She felt a cut there too. ‘Do you think it was Mercure who tipped the soldiers off?’
He ground out a curse. ‘I don’t know.’
