They'd barely made from the hall and into the Keep courtyard before they were stopped.

Empees. Four of them, all armed and armored. As though they'd been expecting a fight to come their way.

"Whoa there, Bastard," said one the guards. "Feeling a little jumpy?"

Lilith stepped toward the guard. "Don't call him that."

The man's expression went hard. "I'll talk to criminals any way I want."

"Criminals?" Lilith bristled. "We haven't committed any crime."

Malevolence glittered in the same guard's eyes as they fixed on Lilith. "You exist, don't you?"

The guard's voice was pure hate, and the sound of it shot adrenaline through Hain's body. He felt the sluggishness from the hall slough from him like a snake shedding its skin.

"You're to come with us," the lead guard said with his eyes on Lilith. Hain could see sergeant stripes along his shoulder. "Now."

"Come with you where?" Hain said, and managed to keep his voice steady as he did. "And by whose order?"

The sergeant's focus broke from Lilith just long enough to answer. "His Holiness, the Bishop."

Hain's blood quickened at the mention of the man. He was about to speak, to tell the guards exactly what he thought about the Bishop, when Lilith spoke up.

"Check your orders again, Sergeant" she said. "The Bishop just ordered us to our quarters. We're to stay there until the Quorum concludes."

Lilith's voice was pure authority, and Hain could tell it had an effect on the three lower ranking Empees. The sergeant though seemed unfazed.

"That true, Bastard?"

"Of course." Hain could hear the fear in his voice, and he hated himself for it. "All of it. Totally true."

The sergeant peeled his eyes from Lilith. Hain saw the violence boiling within them, even before the guard sank his fist into Hain's gut.

Hain folded smoothly as creased paper, his head jerking toward his waist like a stick snapped in the middle. The breath ripped from his lungs and he crumpled, the cobblestones vaulting toward his face with a vicious thwack that set off fireworks behind his eyes.

Hain shut his eyes against the throb in his gut and his face. One of the guards shouted over him, and Hain thought the man sounded pained. His head swam, and time seemed to pass in fractured shades of red and black, like watching the world through a kaleidoscope.

"Don't hurt him!"

That was Lilith's voice, Hain realized through hazy thoughts. Her words sounded strained around the edges.

"Mind yourself, and we won't." It was a man's voice, but he sounded nasally, like someone sick with a cold. "But you keep fighting and I'll hurt the bastard bad enough that he'll pray for death."

"You'll do nothing like it, fool," said the sergeant. "You heard the Bishop's orders. He wants them alive and unhurt."

"But this damned girl broke my nose!" said the first man in a whining, nasally tone.

"I don't care if she stuck you like a pig, you don't get to touch her. The Bishop's got plans for these two."

The Empee's words rang in Hain's mind like shouted voices in a cave. The Bishop's got plans.

Hain wrenched his eyes open despite the pain in his head. Lilith stood a few paces away from where he lay, her forehead smeared with crimson. Two guards flanked her, their arms locked to hers, while a third held his sword a finger's breadth from her throat, his chin bathed in red like a bloody beard. Even from the ground, Hain could see a crooked bend in the man's nose. Lilith must have headbutted the man when he'd come too close.

The sergeant Empee loomed over Hain. His mouth curled in a leering smile when his eyes met Hain's.

"Look at this, boys. The bastard was playing possum the whole time!" The sergeant let out wheezing chuckle that sounded like a death rattle and gave him a light kick. "Figured you'd let the girl take your blows, eh? You're a cunning one, Bastard."

Hain flinched from the foot, and hated himself for it. His insides burned, half in rage and half in shame, but he stayed where he was. His vision felt swimmy, and he thought he might fall if he tried to stand.

"You three take her." The sergeant stabbed a gloved finger at the bloodied Empee. "And she'd better not have any accidents on her way to her cell. You hear?"

The injured Empee grumbled something unintelligible, and inched his sword back from Lilith's throat enough for the two pinning her arms to turn her.

"Meet me underneath," Lilith shouted over her shoulder as the guards marched her away. "Beneath the place I found you last night."

"He'll meet you in hell if you don't shut it," the guard with the sword snarled and he jabbed her armored back hard enough to make Lilith cry out sharply.

Hain wanted to scream at the man, but he held it back. Riling the guard might earn Lilith more pain.

Meet me underneath, she'd said. At the place I found you last night.

Her words rattled about his head. The underhaven–that must be what she'd meant. But how did she plan on getting there with three Empee guards? More importantly, how did she expect him to get there?

"She's got some fire in her, that one," the sergeant Empee said to Hain. "Nothing a dark cell won't gobble up though."

The man must have seen Hain's anger painted on his face, because he let out another wheezing laugh.

"Don't worry after her, Bastard. Do as you're told, and we'll let her go eventually. But if you don't," the guard shrugged, "that pretty face of hers might have a few rat-sized bites missing when you see her again." He smirked. "If you see her again."

Hain tamped his anger down. He needed to stay calm. For Lilith, he told himself.

"What do you want with me?"

"Not much," the guard said. "Just a bit of tracking out beyond the walls."

Hain couldn't hold back the confusion from his voice. "Tracking what?"

"The only thing a heathen bastard is any good for tracking." The Empee's leer turned cruel. "Your heathen friends."

~~~

Hain stood in the center of his room and watched dust motes as they rose and fell on unseen drafts, sparkling in the thin light trickling through the room's single window.

He looked calm in that stillness. So quiet, and unmoving. Rooted to the spot, as though carved whole from the stone beneath him.

Inside, he churned. Pain throbbed in his face, a dull thud that made it feel as though his heart had slid into his cheek during the fight. Hain dragged both hands through his hair, trying to puzzle through the last few hours.

Why do you think the Bishop would need friends more powerful than the Regent?

Hain seethed as he remembered La Doña's words again, and he realized without any doubt that she'd been right. She'd tried to tell him. To warn him. But he'd brushed it off. And now, it seemed, he was paying for it.

The Bishop wanted the throne. That much was apparent. But why, Hain wondered, had the Bishop sent Empees to arrest both him and Lilith? Why not just kill the two of them, just as he had in the Hall when he'd ordered the Empees to kill the Regent and–

Hain snapped the lid shut on that thought before it could finish. The memory of felt too raw to think about right then. Too painful.

Hain turned his focus on the facts he had. La Doña must have made good on her promise to flee the haven, otherwise the Bishop would likely have ordered Hain executed on sight. Once in the wind, tracking the tribe would be hard as trapping smoke unless the Bishop had help from someone who knew how to track them. Someone like Hain.

Hain couldn't let that happen. He needed to get out of the haven, and he needed to do it before the Bishop tried forcing him to track the Viajeros.

But what about Lilith? Surely he couldn't leave without trying to help her. She'd been close to having a sword run through her ribs when she'd told him to meet her in the underhaven, and while Hain knew Lilith was as tough as they came, he wondered if even she could break loose from three armed Empees. No, he thought. She would almost certainly need his help.

But first, he needed to help himself, and that meant breaking free.

He looked about the small space, an idea uncoiling in his mind like a snake. Hain crossed the room, the dewy morning air kissing his cheeks as he leaned his head out the window and looked down. From three floors up the drop looked long enough to push his legs through his throat if he jumped.

It would do, he thought.

Hain cast about his room for the ranging gear. He'd had time enough to dump it in his room amidst all the action at the Keep's gate, and he was more glad than ever that he had. He gathered it up, stuffing everything but a length of rope into his rucksack. He might not be able to jump from the window, but he could surely climb.

Hain bent double over the rucksack, cramming a swath of bandages into the last bit of room before punching them into place. As he did, he felt something small dig into his thigh. His hand went to the spot, and he felt a hard lump within the jerky pouch he'd brought with him to the coast.

It was the ring La Doña had given him, still cinched tight within the pouch. With everything that had happened, he hadn't had room enough in his head to remember it as well. He unwound the pouch and rested the thick silver band in his palm. The thing looked older in the sunlight, the surface pocked and rough as a scab. Wherever this ring had come from, Hain thought, it was older than him.

Hain slipped the ring back into the pouch, his mind caught on what La Doña had said about the ring belonging to his mother. At first he hadn't believed it. Hadn't thought it possible. But now, after La Doña's claims about the Bishop seeming to have come true, he wondered if she could have been telling the truth.

Maybe, he thought. But maybe not. For now it didn't matter. He needed to get to Lilith, and stewing over the ring wasn't going to make that happen.

Leather creaked as he lashed the rope around the pack, tying the other end to one post of his bed. Scaling the side of the Keep would be incredibly dangerous, but doing it with a fully loaded pack on would be suicide. That meant getting the pack to the ground first before following it down. After that, he could sneak into the underhaven from the Keep, track down Lilith, and flee from the haven.

Easy as falling toward a grisly and messy death, he thought with a wry smirk. Then, with a groan he heaved the pack onto the sill and shouldered it into the empty air.

He realized too late how big a mistake he'd made.

The bag dropped. The rope popped taut, tightening around his hands. He cried out, trying to wrench down on the rope even as it ripped over his skin. Fire bloomed in his palms.

He kept the pack from slamming into the ground, but just barely. He let go when the length went slack, tears forming in his eyes as he unwound the rope from his hands. Angry burns scored his palms. He tested one of the wounds with his fingertip, and flinched back from the pain.

He cursed himself as he peaked out the window. The pack had survived the drop, though he couldn't say the same about his hands.

Nothing for it now, Hain thought, and he climbed onto the windowsill. Holding the rope was torture, but he fought through it. By the time he reached the ground, his hands felt hot and swollen, as though he'd squeezed hot coals in his bare palms.

On the ground, Hain hoisted the pack and hurried toward a nearby sewer cover. Once there, he wrenched the heavy lid from the ground, wincing again at his throbbing hands, and dropped into the void of the underhaven, dragging the pack in after him. He nearly took off running without replacing the lid, but thought better of it at the last moment. Leaving the cover off was as good as painting an arrow on the Keep with directions on how to catch him.

Hain was barely a dozen paces into the underhaven when the sound of footsteps splashing ahead met his ears. He stopped, and blinked hard, staring ahead for any movement, but the darkness clung to his eyes like oil.

The splashing grew closer. His heart cranked against his ribs. His breath quickened. Nightmare images blew by behind his eyes. Of Empees sloshing toward him in sodden boots. Of Vrai sliding through the murk, their flaying knives slipping from sheaths like teeth unleashed from behind curled lips.

Then, all at once, the splashing stopped. The silence seemed to congeal the air in his lungs. He balled his fists, despite the throb in his palms. Despite fear screaming in its maddening voice for him run. To flee back down the tunnel. To hide in his room in the Keep, and just wait for this all to end.

He stood fast and readied himself to fight.

"Chocolate?"

Hain's hands went slack at the single word. Because he knew that voice, and he knew the word. The safe word. Their safe word.

Lilith materialized from the gloom seconds later as she came closer.

"You're hurt," Hain said, pointing to a trickle of blood on her bottom lip. "What happened?"

"The Empee with the broken nose got a little handsy with me before I broke loose." Lilith touched her mouth and winced. "What happened with you?"

Hain recounted his climb out the window, as well as the Bishop's plans track the Viajeros.

"That doesn't make sense," she said. "Why does the Bishop care about the Viajeros? He already has Sam, the Regent, and the Quorum doing exactly what he wants."

"Wait, what?" Hain said. "What do you mean he has Sam and the Regent?"

Lilith butted a palm against her forehead. "Oh Heaven and Hell, I forgot that was after they took me away."

"Forgot what?"

"I saw them, Hain. Sam and your uncle," she said. "The Bishop has them both locked up."

Hain was sure he'd misheard. After the Empees had charged the dais in the Regent's Hall, he'd thought for sure both his cousin and uncle were dead.

But they weren't. They lived

"Are they hurt?"

Lilith winced."The Regent was stabbed, but the Bishop's healers are tending to him."

"And Sam?"

"He's safe," Lilith said, then added, "for now."

Hain frowned. "What do you mean?"

"The Bishop is keeping them alive so he can use them. He's demanding Sam rally the haven's troops to attack Sierra or else he'll kill the Regent."

A hole opened in Hain's chest at her words, and not just for Sam and his uncle. Aedan was Echo's Homage to Sierra, and any attack Sam led on the enemy haven would put Aedan in more danger than Hain could imagine.

Aedan's face flared in the forefront of Hain's mind–the soft chime of his laugh, the shallow dimples on his cheeks when he smiled. Time had done nothing to dull the ache of his absence. Even now Aedan's scent seemed to fill the air in Hain's lungs–sharp vanilla tempered by soft roses.

"Aedan." Hain's hands flexed into angry fists despite the pain. "We have to get to Sam."

"So we the Empees can throw us into the cell beside him?" Lilith shook her head. "No thanks."

"But Sam–"

"We're not doing it, Hain, so just forget it." Lilith said. "The Empees know that I got loose, and it's only a mater of time until they find out you did too. They'll be looking for us, and the first place they'll look is in the underhaven."

Hain took a step toward Lilith as though he might tackle her. "I don't care! If Sam marches on Sierra then Aedan's life is at risk." Heat rose to Hain's cheeks. "I won't let that happen."

"Think about what you're saying. If we stay in Echo, then we're sure to get caught, and there won't be anything we can do for either Sam or Aedan." Her voice was pleading. "But if we escape the haven, then we can find Sam on his way to Sierra. Maybe then, so far from Echo and the Bishop, we can convince him not to attack Sierra."

Hain felt like he could scream. She was right, and he knew it.

"How are we supposed to get out of the haven?" Hain said. "You said it yourself that the Empees know we're loose. They're bound to catch us if we try to escape. They know all the ways out of the underhaven."

Lilith showed him a sly smile. "Not all the ways."