Page 180 of Of Iron and Moonlight

“Try again,” Elara insisted.

Gavriel shifted his stance and drove his weight harder.

The hinge bent with a protesting scream.

With a final wrench, it broke.

Elara caught the door before it swung wide and eased it open. For half a second she simply stared at the broken hinge, stunned that it had worked.

Then she was inside the cell, and Lorrain was in her arms. A graceless, desperate embrace. Lorrain’s fingers knotted weakly in the fabric at Elara’s back before they slackened again. Her breath rasped hot against Elara’s shoulder. Fever radiated through her skin.

A strand of damp gold clung to Lorrain’s brow. Elara brushed it away, then reached into her pocket and drew out the violet ribbon she had carried since Jarovina. Her hands unsteadily gathered Lorrain’s hair and tied it back.

The color against gold struck something deep in Elara’s chest. A scrap of ordinary life. Whispers in bed. Laughter in sunlight. Memories, warm and radiant. It brought her more joy than reason should have allowed.

“Someone will have heard us,” Gavriel said, urgency cutting through the moment. His iron-dark eyes darted to the door.

Elara slipped an arm firmly around Lorrain’s waist. Gavriel waited for them to clear the cell before taking her other side. Lorrain hung between them, her feet trying to keep pace with a body that no longer obeyed her cleanly. They must have looked like ruin in motion, two gaunt humans carrying a third who fared worst of all.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

They had gone only a handful of strides before a shadow blocked the doorway ahead. The guard’s eyes landed on the broken hinge, then the open cell, then the three of them.

He lunged.

Elara’s free hand was already in her pocket. She tore out a vial, wrenched the cork loose with her teeth, and thrust it upward as he closed the distance.

The scent bloomed sweet and sharp.

He inhaled.

The male’s hand flew to his throat as if he had swallowed fire. His knees buckled and he staggered sideways, breath sharp and unfocused.

Elara braced for the violent reaction Kalaetzu had warned of.

No flash came. No concussive wave. No oraivane was near.

Gavriel grabbed the rod and slammed it into the fae’s head, then his chest, and drove a final kick into his stomach to keep him down.

Then he was back at Lorrain’s side, and they ran.

They lurched through stairs and corridors as one uneven shape. Every step bit into Elara’s muscles. Her lungs burned from fear and confinement. Gavriel’s gait hitched and faltered, but he forced himself onward.

Halfway down the second flight, Lorrain tripped on a jagged stone. Gavriel caught her with a strained curse before she hit the floor, but her whimper rang louder than either of them liked. They froze, afraid to disturb the quiet with even another breath.

The corridors remained strangely empty, and still no bells rang.

Elara pressed the last ashvael root vapor vial into Lorrain’s trembling hand as they resumed their run. “Hold this. It will weaken fae if you need it. But if there’s oraivane nearby, do not use it. It will ignite.”

Lorrain’s fingers closed around the glass. She nodded faintly.

After what felt like an hour of blind turns and shallow breaths, a familiar stretch of hallway came into view at last. Relief nearly took Elara’s knees. They charged into the laboratory without stopping to wonder whether someone might already be inside.

Kalaetzu stood at a table, hunched over glass and herbs. He looked up, green eyes lighting as though he had expected them all along. “It’s about goddess-cursed time.”

Elara threw her arms around him. “I hoped you both had escaped the island.”

Kalaetzu huffed a laugh. “My glamour wouldn’t hold,” he said dryly. “Njall fought like a storm. Took down at least ten before they managed to get iron on his wrists.”