“Right, sure you wouldn’t. Anyway, we’re equally stuck, but you’re the wanted criminal.” Vera turned back to me. “And if you let the kid out, there are good odds he’s going to cut himself loose. Which is a shame, because all the fire and lightning from those wards is going to be terrible for my complexion.”
If people like them could get “caught” and imprisoned here, there’s a good chance it’s happened to others. That makes the odds Tristan is still alive somewhat higher...but I don’t know how long someone could survive in a cell like this.
Vera’s argument made me nervous, but I couldn’t just leave a child to die. I moved toward the child’s cell with the utmost care and raised the key.
“Thank you,” Keras said.
I glanced at him. “After I free the child, stay there. If you try to break yourself out while Vera is still in her cell, I’ll deliberately trigger every trap I can to make sure you never walk out of here.”
He nodded. “I understand.”
Vera let out a low hiss. “I don’t like this. You’d better know what you’re doing, kid.”
I glanced to her. “I’m pretty sure I do. One question, though. How do you know it’s the blue key that opens these doors?”
She shrugged. “It’s the same color the jailor uses. Why?”
I pointed at the lock. “The keyhole is gray. Could they accept other keys, maybe?”
Vera nodded. “There’s a chance, but other keys might also trigger the wards. It’d be a risk.”
I nodded, considering, as I turned the blue key in the lock.
A section of the wall vanished entirely, taking the key with it. That explained how the key was “used up”, as they explained.
I didn’t step inside the cell immediately; it could have easily been another trap. I removed my rope from my backpack and tried to get the lasso around the kid’s waist.
Vera quirked an eyebrow. “Seriously? I get that you’re cautious, kid, but that seems like overkill.”
“A lack of caution is why we’re in these cells, Vera.” Keras leaned on the wall next to her cell.
“Speak for yourself. My room wasn’t even remotely fair.”
So, she’d failed a challenge and ended up here? Could Tristan have done the same, and ended up in another prison?
It was a chance. Not a good chance, but a possibility. If he was alive, that meant that asking the goddess for the boon of returning him would be much more likely to succeed. People said the goddess could raise the dead, but I didn’t know of any confirmed cases. Just legends.
I clung to that hope as I managed — barely — to get the lasso around the kid’s waist.
“You’re going to hurt him.”
That was Vera speaking, which was interesting. She hadn’t sounded all that concerned about the kid before.
I turned back toward Vera. “You really want me to step in there? There’s a chance the wall will close behind me, or that it’ll trigger another trap.”
“At least...move him slowly, yeah?”
I nodded, inspecting the floor carefully before I dragged the boy’s body across it. The cell wasn’t large, so it didn’t take me long to get him outside. I gingerly picked him up and set him on a non-trapped part of the floor, then turned him over.
His chest still rose and fell. His lips, however, were cracked and torn.
I didn’t really know how feed an unconscious kid water. Maybe one of the others in the cells did, though.
I stood up, brandishing my red key.
Vera narrowed her eyes at me. “Now where’d you get a thing like that?”
“Room with a Valor board.” I turned to Keras. “You seemed to understand the wards... I take it you’re attuned?”
“In a manner of speaking. That’s not important. I do understand the wards, for the most part.”
Enigmatic, but sufficient. “All right. Can you determine if an incorrect key will trigger the wards?”
He knelt by his own keyhole, examining the crystal. “I don’t believe so.”
I quirked a brow. “You don’t believe?”
“I’m not an expert at this style of warding.”
Not good. “Okay. Do you think the explosion would kill people outside the cells if the wards are triggered?”
He shook his head. “No. They are a failsafe for destroying prisoners. The jailor would need to be able to do it and remain safe from right outside.”
I looked to Vera. “Do you know anything that would contradict what he’s saying?”
“No, he’s a little scary, but I think he knows what he’s talking about. So, um, if you’re going to free one of us...”
I looked back to Keras. “If I freed Vera, would you be able to break yourself out and survive the resulting explosion?”
He nodded once.
“Uh, before you do that,” Vera stepped away from her cell door, “I should probably remind you that he’s a wanted criminal.”
Keras put a hand to his forehead. “I’m just a foreigner, Vera. That doesn’t automatically make me a criminal.”
“I’m just sayin’, innocent people don’t usually run around in masks.”
A fair point.
And if he was a criminal, getting him to swear he wasn’t going to harm us wouldn’t really mean much.
I wasn’t confident that freeing everyone was the right choice, but I was even less confident I was going to make it out of here on my own while trying to care for an injured child.
“Keras, I’m Corin. You want to tell me what your side of the story is?”
I was humanizing myself, trying to diminish the chance he’d murder me the second he got out.
“Not now.”
That was not a good answer.
“But, if you get me out of here, I’ll tell you when we’re out of the tower.”
An implication that we’d be leaving together. I could work with that.
I made my way over to Vera’s cell, holding the red key. “You both okay with taking this risk?”
I could see a hint of fear in Vera’s expression, but she hid it well. “I think I’ll die of boredom if I don’t take this chance. So, yeah, go for it.”
The masked man just nodded.
I put the key in the lock.
Nothing happened. I tried to turn the key and it didn’t budge.
“Well, that was anticlimactic.” Vera sighed loudly.
I put the red key back in my back and withdrew the gold one. Vera blinked at me.
“Do you just have a bag full of keys or something?”
I shook my head. “Last one.”