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“Finn, we have to—”
“I know.”
“At least for a day or two. We’ve just got to—”
“I know.”
“This is your mate, son?” Rhydian said, his grey eyes creasing, as if he wanted to keep the love and pain that shone there from his child. “She’s beautiful.”
“This is Jules,” he said, choking the words out. His hands whipped out, and he wrapped his arms around me, holding me hard to his chest. I half closed my eyes, feeling that god awful longing in him rise and meet my own.
“Jules, who’s been touched by the White Wolf.” He nodded. “You love our boy?”
I looked sideways at Finn, almost shyly. Of course I loved him, the feeling more raw and immediate after what we’d been through since coming through the portal, but it hit me so intensely in that moment, it was a struggle to make eye contact.
“You do,” Rhydian said. “Good, he’s going to need your strength for what’s coming.”
And with that, they sat down to strategise. I returned to the tables and distributed food, while Sylvan maintained lookout and the others sorted the latrine buckets. A silence fell over the cells when we started putting the keys back on the correct hooks and packed the bowls away, scraped as clean as we could get them. We, the bringers of hope, were going back to Sylvan’s mother’s house, where no one would touch us against our will, feed us scraps, or make us shit in a bucket. But not for long, I thought. We would find a way to get everyone out of here.
“Finished?” the captain said when we knocked on his door to take his tray away. Finn nodded. “Good, good. Well, you know you’ll need to come down, even during the…festivities? Don’t try and find a little bolthole to hide in. I’ll come for you myself if you don’t feed the inmates and clean the cells.” His eyes roamed across the lot of us. “And you wouldn’t want that.”
“Of course, m’lord. Wouldn’t think of it, m’lord,” Finn repl
ied.
“Good, and don’t think none of us will check. You might have run of the place, such as it is, but any skiving and you’ll be down the Great Wolf’s throat in a second.”
Brandon and I shuddered at that, remembering the feel of just that from our dream. The captain noted us reaching for the other’s hand, and nodded as if satisfied.
“You get what you needed?” Adam asked in a low voice as we returned to the kitchen. It was late and things were slowing down, most of the staff having gone home, and only the boys prepping food for the next day were left.
We nodded.
“Lian,” Finn said. “They say he has my father, Max.”
“That one?” Adam shook his head. “You’ll not retrieve that one. He’s kept in much better conditions nowadays. Only sees to Lian’s daughters when his master wishes it, and no others. No, you’d have a better chance of riding out of here on Lonan’s back than freeing him.”
Finn went to protest, but Slade put a hand on his arm.
“Thank you for today,” Sylvan said, taking Adam’s hand and placing a small clinking bag in the palm. “For your family.”
“That’s not needed,” flustered Adam, but when Sylvan closed his fingers over the bag, he looked pleased. “Take some food for yours and Tsarra’s dinner, please.”
“So, we move during this Great Rite,” Aaron said as we sat around Sylvan’s mother’s table. She hadn’t returned from her work yet, but we’d left a plate of food for her on the kitchen bench.
“Every Volken attends?” Finn said.
Sylvan nodded, but said, “Doesn’t that seem awfully neat? I didn’t intend to arrive back any time near Longest Night. I was hoping to avoid it like the plague. Yet, here we are. Right at the moment when the Volken will be both their most powerful and least attentive. We time this wrong, we’ll get caught up in the slaughter after, like all the other inhabitants.” His eyes narrowed as they scanned the room. “We time this right, we waltz out of here, your people in tow, and put as much distance between us and Lonan as possible.”
“What are you complaining about? Easy is good,” Slade said. “I get you’ve got some whole other trip going on, but we want out of here as soon as we can. This place makes me fucking sick.”
“Complete agreement here. We can’t afford to tackle the Volken head on,” Jack said. “This is like a god given gift.”
“But which god?” Sylvan said, mostly to himself.
“So, we’ve got what? A day to locate Max and get him on board, and then we break the rest out,” Aaron said. “You were able to heal Rhydian, Jules, so tomorrow, we assess everyone else and see who needs seeing to. The guys are on board. They’re talking to the others, getting them ready for what’s coming, and will report any that are likely to be a problem to me. We’re going to need clothes and food and supplies to get us out of here. Can you handle that, Sylvan?”
“Of course,” he muttered. “They think we’re going to protect them from the Great Rite’s slaughter. The people here will give us the shirts from their own backs for that.”
