A pained inhale came from a few feet below us. “You shouldn’t have come. If they catch you, I—I don’t know what I’d do. Please, just leave me.” Desperation infused the plea. It twisted up from that horrible, dark hole and wrapped around me.
Phoebe’s nails bit into my forearms. She leaned forward and pressed her face hard against the bars. “Not likely, Collum Michael MacPherson.” Her thin shoulders spasmed as she choked back a sob. “You know Gran would tan my backside with that wooden spoon of hers if I came back without you.”
She hiccupped and rubbed a shaking hand under her nose. “Just be quiet and stand back. Hope has a plan.”
“No!” His voice was fierce with alarm. “I won’t risk you two getting caught. You have to go. I’m getting what I deserve, and that’s the truth of it. I was stupid and—”
“You listen to me now,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “We’re not leaving without you. There’s no time to explain. Just back away from the window and be ready.”
“Don’t,” Collum begged. “It’s not worth it.”
“No man left behind,” I said. “That’s your motto, right? So listen to your own advice and back the hell up.”
After a long pause, I heard the swish of hay as he moved aside. I knuckled away an angry tear. “Bring me the bucket, please.”
Rachel removed a set of thick lead-lined gloves from a pocket and handed them to me. “Careful,” she said as she unlatched the lid. “Do not spill any on you or ’twill eat clear through to the bone.”
“Gah.” Phoebe reared back as a putrid miasma of rotten eggs enveloped us.
With a quick prayer, I picked up the heavy pot and poured it carefully down one bar after another. Smoke blasted up as the liquid bubbled and foamed against the iron. I kept my face averted, but the fumes scorched my face and stung my eyes.
A miniscule droplet splashed onto the unprotected skin of my inner arm. I whimpered at the pain.
“Hope?” Collum’s voice rose up from the pit. “What’s wrong, lass? Are you all right?”
My hands shook as the acid burrowed through flesh into the muscle beneath, but I never faltered.
“Hush.” Rachel moved up beside me, leather flask in hand. “She’s burned herself.” Cold water sluiced over my skin, making me moan as I poured the remnants of the vitriol onto the final bar.
The pot empty, I handed it back to Rachel and shook off the gloves. All we could do now was wait. And hope.
Metal sputtered and foamed as the minutes ticked by with agonizing slowness. Above us, the sky lightened in increments of gray. We’d run out of time. I picked up the leather gloves, but Phoebe stilled my hand.
“Let me,” she said. “I’m stronger than you.”
I stepped back without protest. Despite her tiny stature, Phoebe was nearly all muscle, while I had the upper-body strength of a toddler. Bracing her feet against the stone lip of the window, she heaved at two of the bars. They groaned, and one bowed but didn’t break.
Panting, she tried again. “Aiii.”
I glanced around. “Shhh,” I said. “You’ll bring every guard in the place down on us.”
She crashed back on her butt as one of the bars snapped from its moorings. She held it up triumphantly. “One down.”
A pinkish glow peeked above the wall behind us. No time.
Collum’s voice sounded close as he spoke. “Phee, tell Mac and Gran I love them. And tell Lu—”
“Tell them yourself.” Phoebe’s voice squeaked with terror. “Now stand back. We’re all going home—together. You hear me?”
“Maybe if we all try?” Desperation pulsed through me. The guards will be here any moment. Hurry. Hurry. Hurry. “I’ll grab Phoebe. Rachel, pull on my waist. We’ll—”
“Won’t work,” said a voice from behind us.
I whirled, groping for the knife in my boot. When his features came into focus, my throat closed up, but I didn’t relinquish my grip on the blade.
Voice flat, I brandished the knife at him. “What are you doing here, Bran?”
Bran Cameron lifted one shoulder. “Out for a stroll.” He squinted casually up at the pinkening sky. “Lovely morning, isn’t it?”
“Look,” I said through my teeth. “Just get out of here. Leave us alone.”
He lifted one shoulder. “Could do that,” he said. “Or I could lend you a horse and a rope. As it happens, I have both.”
Suspicion twined with a cautious exultation as I remembered him charging his horse at Celia. “Why?” I said. “Why would you help us?”
“After you got away, my mother was . . . well . . . a tad miffed.” In the quickly strengthening light, I saw him press a hand to his side. “I thought it best to lie low, as it were, and spent a lovely night outside in a snowstorm, waiting for you to come out of Baynard’s. Once I figured out what you were up to, it took me the devil of a time getting inside the Tower after curfew. Had to give the guards most of my gold and my best flask of Tuscan wine, but it won’t hold them forever.”
He didn’t look at me as he brushed past and clicked his tongue. A gray horse stepped out from behind the corner. With quick, economical movements, Bran uncoiled a rope from the saddle and latched the attached iron hook around the bars.