Page 98 of The Prince and His Stolen Throne
I should have known he would take the questions literally since that’s how he’d treated the old man’s orders. “Thank you, Dirk.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied with a solemn nod, then returned to fussing over Angelica.
“What’s this about an anchor?” she asked.
“It’s part of the—”
Heavy footsteps cut me off. Someone appeared behind Angelica and said, “Excuse me, Princess.” Then a large green hand reached through the bars and plucked the mirror from her hand. “I have to confiscate this.”
A new orc stared back at us. “We will see you soon, champions.” The next thing we saw was the stone wall rushing toward the mirror. Then the reflection shifted, showing Fitz and I once again.
“Well,” Delilah huffed, hands on her hips. “That wasn’t helpful at all.”
“We know Angelica isn’t hurt,” Maximus offered.
“And that she’s in the dungeons,” I said.
“Why does a city hall have dungeons?” Delilah asked.
Fitz pulled out his notebook, flipping through the pages. “The library had a book on city hall with old maps. Since I couldn’t take it with me—” he held a deeper grudge over not being allowed to check out the books than being devoured by them—“I drew what I could from memory.” He found the maps and pointed at a section. “City hall doesn’t have dungeons, but itdoeshave holding cells, which were on a basement level.”
I pulled Fitz’s book toward me and scanned the outline of the lair. It’d been fifty years since those maps were drawn, so parts of it might have totally succumbed to the forest, and the old man may have changed some things around. It still gave us a good starting point. “It looks like there’s an entrance into the basement—or maybe it’s an emergency exit. Do we want to rescue Angelica first, then look for the anchor?”
Fitz shifteduncomfortably, eyes downcast. “Well, ahem, it might be … easier if we leave her where she is.”
“She looked like she was having fun,” Delilah agreed.
Maximus’ eyes darted toward the compact and away before he said the ‘right’ thing. “We should try to rescue her. We’re supposed to complete the quest together.”
“Sure,” I said, nodding along. “But”—I waited as everyone looked at me expectantly— “if we’re caught in the dungeons, we’ll have fewer chances to escape. All they’ll have to do is open a cell door and toss us in. If we’re caught on, say, the second floor.” I tapped one of the potential entrances. “It’ll take more time. They’ll have to carry us down two flights of stairs, past other escape routes …”
Fitz glanced at the compact. “She can’t hear us anymore, right?”
“No, the connection was cut off.”
“In that case, I vote that we leave her there. All in favor?”
Delilah and I immediately raised our hands. Maximus was slower, but he reluctantly raised his as well.
“Excellent,” Fitz said, sighing in relief when we all agreed. “We’ll find the anchor first,thensave Angelica while the Lord of Grimnight is distracted by the chaos of a broken curse.”
“Where do we look for the anchor?” I asked. “It could be anything. What if it’s a random book in someone’s office?”
Happy to distract himself from our decision to abandon Angelica, Fitz launched into his plan. “We’ll split into two teams. One will enter through the back, while the other enters through the side.” He marked both entrances with an X. “We’ll avoid the main door. They don’t know we have a map, so they’ll expect us to choose the most obvious entrance.”
I surreptitiously covered the compact with my hand, sliding it toward me. Had Wilde been listening to us plan? With the mirror closed, he couldn’t see Fitz’s map, but he could probably guess our route.
Did IwantWilde to know our plan? It would end my mission sooner. The royal champions would be captured, the Lord of Grimnight would win, the Kingdom Defense Spell would fall. This whole thing could end without a fight.
But I wanted the champions to succeed. Breaking the curse wouldn’t save their kingdoms, but it would save this city. It would show them that, even after an evil mage’s ‘victory’, they could still win the day. It would give them a reason to keep fighting in the future.
I stuffed the mirror back into my bag, just in case Wildewaslistening. Hopefully the pack muffled our voices.
“Delilah and Fitz should take the second and third floor,” I suggested. “Fitz knows the layout better than any of us, and if something goes wrong, Delilah can jump out a window and still land on her feet.”
Delilah beamed in pride and nodded hard enough to make her collar jangle. “It’s true! I’ve jumped from lots of trees to test it.”
“Maximus and I will take the first floor. If we run into any locked doors, I’ll guard his back while he lockpicks them. If we don’t find it on the first floor, we can work our way down to the dungeons and rescue Angelica.”
