Turning, Sajda faced the entrance in time to see two dozen guards carefully maneuvering iron crates through the doorway and into the arena under the careful supervision of Hansel and Gretel, the twin bounty hunters who brought each order the warden requested from Llorenyae. Sajda had spent plenty of time with the twins in the five years since the tournament began. Hansel was a charming tease, but Gretel had become the closest thing to a friend Sajda had outside of Tarek and now Javan.
Quickly counting the crates, Sajda turned to eye the stalls, her stomach sinking.
She’d have to put something in the last stall—the one with her tunnel in it. Frustration set her on edge at the thought of going weeks without making any progress toward escape.
“Sajda, my mysterious rose, it’s been too long,” Hansel called out, flashing her a wide grin. The light that filtered in through the prison’s skylights dusted bits of gold in his dark red hair and lingered on the runes inked into his arms.
Runes that matched the ones carved into Sajda’s cuffs. If the twins had ever wondered about the similarity, they’d never mentioned it, though Sajda had caught Gretel eyeing the cuffs more than once.
“Stop calling her that. It’s ridiculous.” Gretel rolled her eyes at her brother and then whirled as one of the guards stumbled, nearly dropping his crate. She stalked toward him, the silver bells woven into the braided strip of shocking white that streaked through her dark red hair tinkling as she moved.
“Move with care, move with care,” Hansel said to the guards. “If you break it, you’ve bought it, and I do hate to clean up bloodstains.”
Sajda moved through the line of stalls, opening doors and checking for weaknesses, even though she’d already double-checked them the day before.
It paid to be careful around the kind of beasts Hansel and Gretel delivered.
“You’ll need netting around two of the stalls,” Gretel spoke softly from the first stall as she eyed Sajda’s progress. “One of the creatures has wings, and the other can climb.”
Sajda nodded and moved to put netting in place. “Anything else?”
“Oh the usual,” Hansel said as he joined his sister and winked at Sajda. “Teeth, vicious temperaments, and the occasional wee bit of magic easily contained by the iron in these stalls.”
His gaze bounced off her cuffs and away, but heat burned in Sajda’s cheeks.
Did they think she was a vicious beast who needed to be contained too?
“Three of the creatures are sealed in coffins,” Hansel said, “and if I were you, I wouldn’t break those open until the moment you truly need them. Once you let a reiligarda out of its grave, it’s incredibly dangerous to try putting it back. Here.” He handed her a leather pouch half the length of her arm. “We skimmed some grave dirt from each coffin for you. Put it on whomever is going to fight the reiligarda. The nasty things go straight for anyone who smells like they’re the ones who disturbed the grave.”
Sajda accepted the pouch gingerly. “I need to store three coffins?”
Hansel turned to answer a question from one of the guards, and Gretel said, “If you don’t have an extra stall, you could—”
“I have a stall.” Sajda placed the pouch on a shelf and moved toward the end of the row, her magic churning at the relief that flooded her.
She could keep the reiligarda in the stall with her tunnel, and she could still keep digging. Keep working toward the escape she so desperately craved.
“In here,” she said, and then whirled toward Hansel as a crate crashed against the stone floor. The boy cursed, and Sajda moved quickly to assist him as a beast slashed at the crack in its crate with razor-sharp talons.
When the creature was once again contained, she instructed the guards to roll the reiligarda’s coffins to the back stall where Gretel still stood.
“I’ll do that,” Gretel said firmly.
Hansel laughed. “One of these days I’m going to have to introduce you to the wonders of delegating menial tasks to others.”
Gretel didn’t reply. Instead, she waved the guards off and began maneuvering the coffins into the stall. “Sajda, you can help.”
Sajda moved to the stall and grasped one side of the coffin, grateful to be wearing her leather gloves so that she wouldn’t have to touch the iron directly. When they had the first coffin wedged against the far corner of the stall, Gretel said softly, “Are you in trouble?”
Sajda froze and whipped her gaze up to meet Gretel’s piercing blue eyes. For a long moment, neither of them spoke, and then Gretel nodded toward the hay trough.
Turning, Sajda saw that the trough wasn’t flush against the wall. The shadow of her tunnel peeked out from behind it.
Gretel stepped past her and shoved the trough back into place. “It’s yours, isn’t it?”
Sajda’s heart pounded, magic screaming through her veins to hurl itself helplessly at the cuffs that bound her.
“That’s what I thought,” Gretel said, as if Sajda’s silence had confirmed something for her. Glancing at the cuffs on Sajda’s wrists, she said quietly, “Will you tell me what you are?”
What would the girl who hunted monsters do if she learned what kind of monster Sajda was beneath her cuffs? The world dropped out from under Sajda’s feet, and her hands came up, fingers curled like claws ready to draw blood.
Gretel raised her hands, palms out. “I’m on your side, Sajda. I’ve spent a lifetime around those who are evil and those who are powerful. I know the difference.”
Slowly, Sajda lowered her hands, her heart pounding painfully in her chest. “What are you going to do?”
Gretel smiled, and there was a shadow of sadness in her eyes. “I want to help you, if you’ll let me.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re friends, and I don’t have very many of those.”
Letting her help meant trusting her completely, something Sajda struggled to do. Still, Gretel could have called for the warden the moment she saw the hole in the wall behind the trough. She could have just walked away without getting involved. Instead, she’d offered to help, and Sajda knew Gretel never said anything she didn’t mean.
Gretel spoke quickly as Hansel shouted her name in the background. “What if next time Hansel and I deliver some beasts, we smuggle you out in one of the crates?”
The crates. Made of iron. Sajda imagined the terrible waves of pain and sickness that would bring her to her knees, and swallowed back a lump in her throat. She could endure anything if it meant escape. Tarek could easily fit in a crate too. And if Javan was still trapped in Maqbara when winter hit and Hansel and Gretel returned with their next shipment, she’d smuggle him out in a crate as well.
Meeting Gretel’s gaze, she said, “I’m listening.”
Gretel glanced over her shoulder as if looking for eavesdroppers and then spoke quickly. “The order we’re delivering now takes care of all the beasts the warden needs for the remaining rounds of the tournament. We won’t be back until the winter order is placed. If you still need help then, I’ll be ready.”
Sajda looked at the iron crates and swallowed.
Gretel brushed her hand against Sajda’s arm and said, “I’ll bring wooden crates.”
Sajda met her gaze and found fierce compassion on her friend’s face. Would she still feel compassion if she knew what Sajda really was? “I can explain—”