16
FINN
Finn woke in the dark. The house was quiet around him. He lay still, listening. A beam creaked above. Somewhere, a man coughed in his sleep. Nothing else moved.
How had this happened so fast? He pictured Sybil’s watchful eyes, her pious whispers. She had twisted their friendship into something sinister. He cursed himself. They had been careless, laughing together while jealous eyes watched from the shadows.
Finn’s cell was small and cold, the air damp. There was straw on the floor. The wooden door, banded with iron, was locked from the outside. There was no window.
He got up and tested the door. Solid.
He went to the door and knocked, a quick, urgent rhythm. He waited, then knocked again, harder this time. Then he added a groan.
“What is it?” a man muttered from the other side.
“My gut,” Finn gasped, doubling over as footsteps approached. “The stew… I need the privy. Now.”
The bar slid back with a scrape. The door opened only a crack. “Ye can wait.”
Finn retched, a convincing, hacking sound. “Not unless you want to clean it up.”
With a curse, the guard opened the door fully. Finn saw the knife at the man’s belt.
“Be quick,” the man said.
Finn stepped out, shoulders slumped, eyes down. They walked the short passage toward the latrine.
When the guard turned, Finn moved. All the hours of training he’d received under the tutelage of his father’s master-at-arms came back in a rush. He drove his shoulder into the man’s chest, wrenched the knife from his belt as he stumbled, and brought the blade up under his jaw.
“Don’t shout,” Finn said in a low voice. “Don’t move.”
The man froze.
“Where is the girl? Where did they put her?”
“I—”
“Where?” He pushed the blade closer.
“Lower rooms,” the man rasped. “Pantry passage.”
“Which door?”
“Third. On the left.”
Finn shoved him into the privy. The man didn’t go quietly.
He twisted and planted his feet, and they struggled in the narrow space until Finn finally got him down.
He tore a strip from his own sleeve to gag him, then used the guard’s belt to tie his wrists.
The man bucked once, hard, then lay still, chest heaving, his eyes burning into Finn’s.
Finn straightened up and pulled the door shut. His hands were trembling.
The manor corridors were dark. He kept to the walls, counting doors. One. Two.
Three. A plain wooden door with a slide bolt on the outside. No guards were in sight.
Finn pressed his ear to the door. “Cecily?” he whispered.
A sound, raw and high-pitched.
“Finn?”
“I’m here.”
He slid the bolt free.
Cecily stood there, pale in the dim passage, her hair loose around her face. Her eyes fixed on him as if she couldn’t believe he was real.
For one moment, neither of them moved. Then she made a small sound and stepped into him.
Finn caught her. He wrapped his arms around her frail shoulders and held her tight. He felt her ribs under his hands, felt her shaking, felt how small she was.
“We have to go,” he whispered against her hair.
“I know,” she said, clinging to his tunic.
He pulled her down the passage. A shout broke out behind them.
“There!”
Finn yanked a rear door open and dragged Cecily into the yard. The cold hit them hard. Frost glazed the ground. They ran for the trees.
A horn sounded, then barking.
“Dogs,” Cecily gasped.
Finn pulled her harder. They reached the stream and splashed through without stopping. The frigid water soaked their shoes, numbing their legs.
On the far bank, something burst from the brush.
A dog lunged for Finn. He sidestepped, but the animal was fast, twisting and clamping its jaws onto Cecily’s arm as she tried to scramble past.
She screamed, a strangled, high-pitched wail.
Finn lifted the knife instinctively. The blade sank in once. The dog yelped and snapped at Finn this time, its jaws closing on his sleeve, tearing the cloth.
Finn drove the knife down a second time. Harder.
The dog gave a terrible shriek and collapsed into the leaves.
“We can’t stop,” Finn said, his chest heaving.
They ran until the sounds behind them faded.
At last, they collapsed beneath a pine that buffered the winter wind. The sky was beginning to pale.
Finn pulled Cecily close. She shook with cold and pain. Her sleeve was dark with blood.
They had nothing—no money, no food, no warm clothes. The cold bit harder now, a cruel reminder of the warm beds and rich food they’d started to take for granted.
Finn stared at his hands. He had a cut on one palm. His sleeve was torn. His whole body shook with the cold.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and his voice cracked. “I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you safe.”
Cecily didn’t answer at first. She pressed her face into his shoulder, and he felt her tears wet through his tunic. Finn’s throat tightened until it hurt. He swallowed hard, but it didn’t help.
He hated this rush of emotion. He turned his face away so she wouldn’t see. He forced a rough laugh that didn’t fool either of them.
“Brat,” he muttered, but it came out as a sob.
Cecily made a weak sound. “Sir Know-It—”
Finn cut her off by pulling her closer, wrapping his arms around her as if he could hold heat into her bones by sheer force. She clung to him, her fists twisted in his tunic, and he held her until his arms ached.
When their shadows had shortened beneath them, they got up and began walking.