Home > Ash and Quill (The Great Library #3)(4)

Ash and Quill (The Great Library #3)(4)
Author: Rachel Caine

“It is against my religion. Does no one follow the Prophet here, peace and blessings be upon him? Here. I’ve removed the pins from my hair,” Khalila said, and extended her hand to surrender a palmful of them. “I have nothing else hidden beneath it. I swear that.”

“I don’t trust your oath, Scholar,” the man said, and without any warning, he stepped behind her, grabbed a handful of the fabric of her hijab and yanked. Khalila’s head snapped back as the scarf was dragged off, and she let out a small cry of dismay and shock as she grabbed for the fabric. He shoved her hard against the bars of the cell with his hand on the back of her neck. “Stay still!”

“Hey! Hands off!” Jess shouted as a sudden ball of fury ignited inside him like Greek fire and he grabbed the bars and rattled them. Dario swore to knife the man in his sleep.

Khalila didn’t make another sound.

The guard pulled the scarf loose from where it sagged around Khalila’s neck, and a riot of smooth, basalt black hair cascaded over her shoulders. He crumpled the fabric in his hand and stuck it in his belt. “Better,” he said to her. “No special treatment around here for you or whatever god you follow, Scholar. Best you learn that quickly.”

Khalila turned whip fast to grab the man’s wrist and extended and twisted his whole arm. She continued the spin and pressed her palm hard into the back of his elbow, reversing it to the breaking point, and held him there as he cried out. He shifted to try to take the strain off the joint, and she pressed harder. This time, she got a shrill cry. His knees buckled.

The other guards moved forward, and Glain glided out to get in their way. Khalila acknowledged that with a quick flick of a glance but kept her attention on the man she had in the painful, joint-cracking hold.

“Don’t make me break it,” she said. “Never do that again. Never. It’s insulting and disrespectful. Do you understand?”

“Let go!” he panted. Khalila took her head scarf from his belt and shoved him away. He got his balance and lowered his chin, and Jess saw him reach for a knife at his belt.

Glain, without a word, turned immediately and landed a swift, strong uppercut that jerked the guard’s head up and rolled his eyes back to the whites. Her distraction gave the other two guards an opening, of course, and one grabbed Glain and pushed her back against the wall. He slammed a fist straight into her guts. She grinned with bare, wet teeth. “Weak sauce, Burner,” she almost purred. “Have another go.”

He followed up with a second punch, harder. Useless, and Jess knew it; Glain had made a lot of money in the High Garda barracks with this trick. As long as she had time to tense her abdominal muscles, he wouldn’t do her damage, and she’d never let on that it hurt. A bloody savage kind of game, but it suited Glain to the ground.

“Enough,” the last guard said, and shoved his friend back when he prepared to punch Glain again. “You, get back in the cell and there’ll be no more trouble,” he told Khalila. “I won’t touch you if you don’t force me to it. All right? You can keep the scarf. No need for any more of this.”

Khalila nodded. “Thank you,” she said. “You might want to check on your friend. I think he might need a Medica.” She stepped over the man Glain had put down as she slid the scarf back over her head and began to tuck it into shape.

“You too, soldier. Get back in,” the third guard said to Glain, and stood out of her way. She hadn’t stopped smiling—it was a frighteningly feral thing—and walked without a care in the world into the cell. She managed to step on the fallen guard as she did so. He didn’t even groan.

“I appreciate the help.” Khalila held up her palm; Glain casually slapped it.

“Oh, I did it for the fun,” she said, and, with a flourish Jess rather enjoyed, swung the cell door closed once she was inside. It reminded him of Khalila removing her Scholar’s robe before it could be taken. “Well? Are you planning to lock it, y twpsyn?” He didn’t know the Welsh term, but he assumed it wasn’t flattering.

The guard who’d punched Glain stepped up to turn the key. “Next time,” he said to Glain.

“Precious, next time I won’t just stand there,” she replied. “And after that, I’ll send flowers.”

Jess laughed. “You know, Glain, there was a time when I didn’t like you. I was very stupid.”

Glain gave him that half-wild grin. “Shut up. You still are.”

The guards were a lot more careful, and they chose Morgan next; while they focused on her, Jess leaned against the bars with his arms folded to wait his turn. That conveniently put his right hand close enough to extract the precious metal hairpin from his sleeve and tease a long loose strand from the fraying cloth. The resulting thread wasn’t as long as he would have preferred, but he was low on options. He tied the string one-handed onto the pin, made a running loop on the other end, and raised his hand to cover a cough as the guards finished with Morgan and locked her door. He pushed the loop over a back tooth and swallowed, and for a perilous second he was afraid the pin would catch in his throat before it slid through to dangle at the end of the string, halfway down his gullet.

It wasn’t comfortable.

“Now you,” the guard said, and unlocked the door to their cell. “Big one. No resistance or I swear, we’ll put you down for good.” He pulled a gun this time and leveled it on Thomas as the big young man stepped out. “Face the wall. Hands up and flat on the stone. No sudden moves.”

Thomas seemed perfectly content to be searched, which was a relief to everyone; since his rescue from the Library’s secret prison, his reactions had an unpredictable quality that put Jess on edge at moments like this. But he stayed docile, was pronounced clear, and was sent back into the cell without trouble.

Jess’s turn went fast, but not fast enough; he’d never been as good at this magic trick as his brother Brendan, and sweat broke out on his brow as he fought the urge to gag the string and hairpin up again. He could maddeningly, constantly feel the foreign object in his throat, bouncing against tender parts, and even the fastest sweep of the guard’s hands felt like eternity. It was important not to panic. He’d seen smugglers choke on swallowed keys.

“All right,” the guard said, and shoved him back into the cell. “Next. You. Spaniard.”

Jess sat and slowed his breathing and pulse as best he could while the search went on. His stomach roiled and rebelled, but he somehow kept it from destroying him. Dario’s search began and ended. The third guard had come around by then, muttering drunkenly about revenge, and was sent on his way to see a Medica.

Even Wolfe and Santi submitted without trouble, as if they knew how important it was to get the guards out quickly.

The outer door finally shut behind the departing guards with a metallic clang, and Jess closed his eyes as he listened for the sound of keys. He heard them. So, he had individual cell locks to contend with and an outer door to get through as well. And one small hairpin to his name.

“They’re gone,” Thomas told him, and Jess opened his eyes. “You’ve turned the color of spoiled milk. Are you sick?”

Jess held up a finger to signal him to wait and then reached into his mouth to take hold of the slippery piece of string. Relax, he told himself, and gave it a steady pull. He couldn’t hold back the half-retching cough as the pin slid free of his throat, but the temporary nausea was a small price to pay for the triumph of holding that pin up for Thomas to inspect. “Old street magician’s trick,” Jess told him, and pulled the looped string off his tooth. “Swallow it down, vomit it up. Preferably without vomit.”

“That,” Thomas said with real admiration, “is disgusting.”

“Agreed.” Jess wiped the hairpin off and carefully bent it flat, then began to work the center until it snapped into two halves. “So many useful things you learn running with a bad set.”

“So I’m learning,” Dario said from across the way. “What good will that do?”

“Lockpicks.”

“So? You unlock our cells. We’re still trapped in Philadelphia.”

“Then I won’t unlock yours.”

   
Most Popular
» Nothing But Trouble (Malibu University #1)
» Kill Switch (Devil's Night #3)
» Hold Me Today (Put A Ring On It #1)
» Spinning Silver
» Birthday Girl
» A Nordic King (Royal Romance #3)
» The Wild Heir (Royal Romance #2)
» The Swedish Prince (Royal Romance #1)
» Nothing Personal (Karina Halle)
» My Life in Shambles
» The Warrior Queen (The Hundredth Queen #4)
» The Rogue Queen (The Hundredth Queen #3)
fantasy.readsbookonline.com Copyright 2016 - 2024