“We know,” Pretha says softly, throwing a long look at Finn. “We were just discussing how to find and free him. No one knows how to get to the queen’s dungeons.”
“I do.” I swallow. “I followed Sebastian there tonight, but I couldn’t free Jalek. There is no door on his cell—only bars.”
“Only mortals are foolish enough to give their prisoners doors, Princess,” Finn says.
Pretha chews on her thumbnail. “We’ll trade something for him.”
“Like what?” Finn asks.
“I think I have an idea,” I say.
“Information,” Pretha says, continuing as if I never spoke. “There has to be something.”
Finn shakes his head. “There’s no information I can give Prince Ronan that he would think was worth the trade.”
“I know what we can do,” I try again.
“But there is,” she says, looking at me quickly.
“No,” Finn growls. “We’ve worked too hard.”
“Listen to me,” I shout, my voice loud enough to echo in the high-ceilinged room.
Finn raises a brow. “Pardon, Princess. We didn’t mean to upset you. Tell us your idea.” Condescension drips from his words and I almost want to walk away just to spite him, but . . . Jalek. I can’t leave him there.
“We can’t open his cell, so we walk him out through the walls.”
Pretha’s eyes light up, and she turns to Finn. “Could you—”
“No,” he says, cutting her off. “Not even on a good day, and definitely not right now.”
“I think . . . I think I can.”
Pretha steps forward, her brow creased. “Then why didn’t you do it when you were there tonight?”
Finn scoffs. “Because she can’t.” He turns to me. “Your optimism is charming, but we aren’t deep enough into your training yet. You can hardly control the smallest bit of your power, and if you lost your hold on it while slipping through the queen’s wards, you’d have the entire royal guard on your ass.”
My cheeks burn. I feel like a fool for what I have to admit, but I force myself to say it. “You’re right. I can’t. Not by myself, but my power . . . it’s stronger when you’re around. And when you touch me . . .” I immediately regret my words. They sound far, far too intimate. My face is on fire, but I lift my chin and go on. “I think if you go with me, the boost I get from you will give me the power and control I need to do this.”
Finn stares at me.
Pretha shakes her head. “It’s too risky. What happens if you get inside that cell and you can’t do it. Then all three of you are stuck. Putting aside the trouble that would mean for us, Brie, do you really want to risk your prince discovering what you’ve been up to?”
“Let’s show her.” Finn steps forward and offers me his hand.
I put my hand in his and arch my back as my power awakens inside me. The room goes wholly dark, and Pretha mutters a curse right before I take her hand and the three of us walk through the wall and into the back alley.
* * *
“Wake up, you lazy bastard,” Finn says, nudging Jalek with his boot. “Unless you want to be the queen’s breakfast this morning.”
I cringe at Finn. In the pitch black of the cell, I can hardly make out his features, even with my excellent night vision. “Her breakfast? Is she a cannibal?”
“She’s a monster,” Jalek says, pushing himself off the ground and scowling at us. “How the hell did you two get in here? You have a damned death wish?”
Finn tilts his head in my direction and shrugs. “The princess insisted. I didn’t want to disappoint her when she was in the mood for an adventure.”
“If you end up sacrificing yourself for me,” Jalek mutters, “I’m gonna kill you before the queen has the chance.”
At the sound of feet scuffing on the stairs, I turn toward the bars and try to see who’s coming, but the angle makes it impossible. When we snuck past the party roaring outside and into the castle, there were two guards stationed in the hall with the glamoured doorway and another two at the top of the dungeon stairs. “Someone’s coming,” I whisper.
Finn’s head snaps to the stairs, and before I can even follow his gaze, he’s yanked me to the back corner of the cell. There, we become the darkness.
Jalek’s eyes widen. “Gods above and below,” he mutters.
I see the light before I see the sentry. He’s dressed in the traditional attire of Arya’s guard and holds an orb of light in the palm of his hand.
“Are you talking to yourself, traitor?” the uniformed sentry asks.
Jalek’s face becomes a mask of indifference as he turns to face the bars.
The sentry flashes the orb over Jalek’s face and then around the cell. Finn keeps ahold of my hand as he pulls me against him so my back is flush with his front. My breath catches at the contact, and my body stiffens.