“You really know how to cut me deep,” I reply dryly, hoisting myself up and into the Colonel’s chambers.
The compartment is cold, lit by low lights, and offensively well organized. Old equipment is pushed neatly against the right wall, gathering dust, while a desk runs the length of the left. Stacks of files and papers crowd the surface in neat rows, dominating the space. At first I don’t even see a bed, but it’s there, a narrow bunk that rolls out from beneath the desk. Clearly the Colonel doesn’t sleep much.
Kilorn was always a slave to his curiosity, and now is no different. He drips his way over to the desk, ready to explore.
“Don’t touch anything,” I hiss at him while I wring out my sleeves and pant legs. “Get one drop on those papers and he’ll know someone was in here.”
He nods, pulling his hand back. “You should see this,” he says, his tone sharp.
I step to his side in an instant, fearing the worst. “What?”
Careful, he points a finger at the only thing decorating the walls of the compartment. A photograph, warped by age and damp, but the faces are still visible. Four figures, all blond, posing with stern but open expressions. The Colonel is there, barely recognizable without his bloody eye, one arm around a tall, well-boned woman, and his hand on a young girl’s shoulder. Both the woman and the girl wear dirt-stained clothes, farmers by the look of it, but the gold chains at their necks say differently. Silently, I remove the gold chain from my pocket, comparing the metal so fine it could be thread to the necklaces in the picture. But for the mismatched key dangling from the end, they are identical. Gently, Kilorn takes the key from my hand, puzzling over what it could mean.
The third figure explains it all. A teenager with a long, golden braid, she stands shoulder to shoulder with the Colonel and wears a smirk of satisfaction. She looks so young, so different without her short hair and scars. Farley.
“She’s his daughter,” Kilorn says aloud, too shocked for much else.
I resist the urge to touch the photograph, to make sure it’s real. The way he treated her back in the infirmary, it can’t possibly be true. But he called her Diana. He knew her real name. And they had the necklaces, one from a sister, one from a wife.
“C’mon,” I murmur, pulling him away from the picture. “It’s nothing to bother with now.”
“Why didn’t she say anything?” In his voice, I hear a little bit of the betrayal I’ve felt for days.
“I don’t know.”
I keep hold of him, moving us both toward the compartment door. Left down the stairs, right at the landing, left again.
The door swings open on oiled hinges, revealing an empty passage quite like the ones on the mersive. Sparse and clean, with metal walls and piping above us. Electricity bleeds overhead, pumping through a wired network of veins. It’s coming from the shore, feeding the lights and other machinery.
Like Farley said, there’s no one down here. No one to stop us. I suppose, as the Colonel’s daughter, she would know firsthand. Quiet as cats, we follow her instructions, mindful of every single step. I’m reminded of the cells beneath the Hall of the Sun, where Julian and I incapacitated a squadron of black-masked Sentinels to free Kilorn, Farley, and the doomed Walsh. It seems so far away, yet that was only days ago. A week. Just one week.
I shudder to think where I’ll be in seven more days.
At last we come to a shorter passage, a dead end with three doors on the left, three doors on the right, and just as many observation windows set in between. The glass of each is dark, but for the window on the end. It flickers slightly, casting harsh white light through the pane. A fist collides with the glass and I flinch, expecting it to crack beneath Cal’s knuckles. But the window holds firm, echoing dully with every boom boom of his fists, showing nothing more than smears of silver blood.
No doubt he hears me coming, and thinks I’m one of them.
When I step in front of the window, he freezes mid-motion, one clenched and bleeding fist poised to strike. His flame-maker bracelet slides down his thick wrist, still spinning from his momentum. That’s a comfort, at least. They didn’t know enough to take away his greatest weapon. But then why is he still imprisoned at all? Couldn’t he just melt the window and be done with it?
For a single, blazing moment, our eyes meet through the glass, and I think our combined stare might shatter it. Thick, silver blood drips from where he struck his hand, mixing with already-dried stains. He’s been at this for a while, beating himself bloody in an attempt to get out—or burn off a little bit of his rage.
“It’s locked,” he says, his voice muffled behind the glass.
“Couldn’t tell,” I reply, smirking.
Next to me, Kilorn holds up the key.
Cal starts, as if noticing Kilorn for the first time. He smiles, grateful, but Kilorn doesn’t return the gesture. He won’t even meet his eyes.
From somewhere down the hall, I hear shouting. Footsteps. They echo strangely in the bunker but grow closer with every heartbeat. Coming for us.
“They know we’re here,” Kilorn hisses, looking back. Quickly, he jams the key in the lock and turns it. It doesn’t budge and I throw my shoulder against the door, slamming into cold, unforgiving iron.
Kilorn forces the key again, twisting. This time I’m close enough to hear the mechanism click. The door swings inward as the first soldier rounds the corner, but my thoughts are only of Cal.
It seems princes make me blind.