CHAPTER FIVE
Hope
Pytr
It’s completely dark in the hallway between our rooms. I step carefully, holding my breath when I move, counting my steps until I know where I am. And then I raise my hand and tap, softly, on the door.
There’s no response. I tap again, slightly harder.
“Come in.”
The response is a whisper, rough in the darkness. I could almost believe I imagined it. I push the door open, and moonlight fills the hall. There’s a silent, still figure lying on the bed in front of me. I close the door, then walk toward the bed.
“Reznyk,” I whisper. “I’m sorry, it’s late. Thank the gods you’re awake—”
There’s a low scraping sound, and every muscle in my body pulls tight. I freeze halfway across the room. The scraping sound comes again, and my gods, the shadows under the bed. They’re moving.
Fear pulls my throat tight. I step backward as something dark emerges from beneath the bed. I turn to the pillow, where my friend is sleeping in the moonlight—
Wait. The figure under the bed comes to his feet, then brushes off his sleeves and turns to me.
“Reznyk?” I stammer.
He raises an eyebrow.
“What the fuck were you doing under the bed?” I ask, barely managing to keep my voice to a whisper.
Reznyk turns to the bed, then back to me, and shrugs. “The bed’s not a defensible position.”
“The bed’s not a what?”
Reznyk crosses his arms over his chest. “Is there something in particular you wanted, or is this just your idea of a good time?”
I huff a sigh. Sometimes I feel closer to the other three Elites than I’ve ever felt to anyone, save Liv, but then something like this happens, and I’m reminded of the vast chasm between all four of us.
Syrus and Aveus talk about their former lives all the time, and most of what they say sounds about as realistic as talking rabbits and dancing sheep. My life before the Towers must seem incredibly boring to the two of them.
And then there’s Reznyk. He doesn’t say a damn thing about his past. He just takes the magic we’re given, turns it into weapons, and keeps his mouth shut. Hells, for all I know, he came from some loving, well-adjusted family somewhere.
My lips twist into something like a smile, because I don’t believe that for a heartbeat. And isn’t that why I’m here? Because, out of the three of them, Reznyk is the first one who’ll tell me if something is idiotic. Or impossible.
“I need your help,” I admit.
Reznyk sits down on his bed, pulls a pillow out from under the covers, and pats the mattress. I sit down next to him and tell him everything. The man who stopped me in the street. His missing wife, the one who disappeared during the full moon tour.
And then I add what made me sneak through the hallway tonight.
“I saw her,” I tell him. “Kyla. The wife, I mean. Blonde hair, short, crooked nose. She was wearing Entrant robes, going into their quarters. And she— she was crying.”
Reznyk snorts. When I look at him, he’s staring through the window at the rising moon. It’s almost full, that damn moon. The Towers will open for another tour soon.
“I want to get her out,” I admit. “I— I can’t just do nothing.”
Reznyk makes a noise in the back of his throat. “No one leaves the Towers,” he finally says, his voice low and thick. “Not unless you’re dead.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I snap.
I shake my head, then hide my face in my hands. Rage and sorrow climb the inside of my throat, threatening to choke me. My eyes burn.
My friends make this place survivable. The way Syrus sneaks us out, it means we can almost pretend we’re free.
That we aren’t chained to the Towers, just like all the other Entrants and Novices, serving the Exemplars until we die in training.
That we could just keep walking, through the streets and down to the docks, onto a river barge, and that the Exemplars wouldn’t be able to find us and drag us back with their silver chains filled with magic.
But that’s a myth, a child’s fairy tale. We can’t leave. Because the white-robed Exemplars would find us, and they would either kill us or make us pray for death.
It’s been almost two years.
My heart feels like a fist inside my chest. I promised her I’d return in a year, with bags of coins and the sort of reputation that meant she’d never have to work for anyone else ever again.
I’ve never broken a promise before. Not to anyone, and especially not to her.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, through the cage of my fingers. “It’s just—”
“I know,” Reznyk replies.
He comes to his feet, then paces back and forth in the moonlight. His dark hair is getting longer, and it flies behind him like a ghost.
And he’s limping. I open my mouth to tell him to ask Syrus for healing, then think better of it. I don’t know what the Exemplars did to cause that limp, but whatever it was, they probably don’t want to see it go away too quickly.
Reznyk stops, then turns to me.
“We should talk to the others,” he says. “If we do this, we’ll do it together.”
I sigh, and my shoulders fall. I didn’t realize how much I was hoping he’d tell me that I’ve lost my mind, that what the man asked me to do is impossible. That there truly is no way out of the Towers.
Instead, Reznyk gave me hope.