For the next few days, maybe a week or so, the guard kept sneaking Rusk and Gedresial rolls of bread. It was better than starving, but Rusk longed for something more nutritious. The jingling of keys above his cell every couple hours kept him going. He had also, in that short amount of time which seemed like forever, learned a tapping language to communicate with the person in the vents. They were close, they kept saying. They almost had the distractions ready to bust Rusk and Gedresial out of there. But then King Ehrryn cycled out the guard. A new one, sterner, took his place.

Gedresial was dragged from his cell first. Rusk reached out feebly in an attempt to figure out what was going on, but was met with only a whimper as a device similar to the necromancer’s staff thrust deep inside Gedresial, rendering him mute and limp.

“Where are you taking him?” Rusk demanded at the new guard. “Tell me.”

“What’s the matter, prisoner? You two friends now? Figures a betrayer would make friends with forest territory filth.”

Rusk hadn’t told anyone he was forest territory. He wondered how they knew, and then dreaded the answer. Maybe they really did have more of his friends in here.

When the guard was nearer the door to the prison the tapper in the vents tapped Rusk a message. Be ready, it said. Then those keys went jangling. And one, a single skeleton key small enough to fit in the waistband of Rusk’s prison attire, fell through to the floor. Such was the action that the noise of Gedresial being dragged away covered the key’s drop into Rusk’s cell. Rusk, ever the opportunist especially now, swiped the key and stuffed it right into his waistband. He didn’t tap out a thank you to the vent dweller.

It wasn’t necessary. For now he had to focus on what was necessary, and what was necessary only. He had a key now. He could get out. All he had to figure out was how to use it without the guard turning that violent attention toward him. He’d come back for Gedresial if he wasn’t dead. If this plan worked. If what little he had of a plan was actually a plan at all. Rusk sat and strategized, the glow of his eyes searching deep into the Elva, which could answer him now but not provide.

He glared as Gedresial’s unconscious form was dragged out of sight beyond the door. Rusk asked the Elva, and the Elva answered. Something inside the key increased the connection. The voice was clearer. And then he realized he recognized it.

It was Mandy. Mandy was on the other side.

Speaking into Rusk’s head. He might’ve felt violated in any other situation.

Mandy told him in no uncertain terms the date of his execution. And of Gedresial’s. Which was today. Gedresial’s was. Rusk had a few days longer. And also, she’d dug up information with the help of Iraiah to know that the previous guard, Iraiah’s friend, was scheduled for execution too. All of this public, naturally. But it being public gave them all an advantage. That meant more opportunities for things to go wrong on the King’s end. For the weather to interrupt, or for the crowds to gather in opportune positions.

Or for an arrow to catch the rope and free Rusk.

All of these were well and good, but Rusk still had to figure out how to save Gedresial from the confines of his cell. He had the key of course, and relayed that to Mandy telepathically through the Elva, but he also had no opportunity to use it. Not with the guard being all new and not on his side.

Then when Rusk reached for the Elva to figure out any opportunities to deal with the new guard, he realized the guard was in fact dead. A necromancer puppet. Not surprising, and hey maybe it could be used to his advantage. The dead Rusk had dealt with before. And Mandy was a master archer, better than even him. They could pull this off. So he told Mandy through their connection, speaking to her monster instead of her, to find the Dragons Knock.

She answered that she already had it. They had the same idea.

So Rusk waited. He waited and stared at the guard and pleaded for Mandy to save Gedresial if she could. He was one of Rusk’s friends now, an asset. And to find Floumeré.

The Elva deadened. Suddenly Mandy’s voice was gone. Rusk was left with his own thoughts, not knowing why the connection had been cut off. Perhaps the necromancer had noticed, done some spell to increase the dampening of this place, or perhaps Mandy had been found out. Rusk hoped she weren’t being killed at this very moment, while she was trying to help him, while he was locked up in this god forsaken cell.

A crash from outside, from above ground that rumbled all through the bars of the cell and the floor and the ceiling, that wrenched Rusk out of his thoughts because it was so loud it was the only thing capable to focus on, sounded and rumbled and banged. He stood up, climbing his hands up the bars, and the new guard, taken aback as well even though he was dead, looked up at the ceiling, which dripped debris.

Someone was making an escape attempt.

Now was Rusk’s chance. He wasted zero time pulling the skeleton key from his waistband and jamming it into the lock through the bars on his cell. It made his elbow cramp something awful, and soon the guard noticed and clambered closer, but another rumble and crash tripped them both, and by that time the foundation above them was so compromised that a jagged portion of ceiling crashed down on Rusk’s cell, causing the door to swing open with a hilarious wonderful creak.

And then in front of him dropped a blonde woman wearing blue. There were throwing knives at her belt and holsters clearly made by Mandy’s perfect hand tied round her thighs, carrying items Rusk couldn’t discern. She also had a cape and cowl. Short ones, so as not to impede her movement.

“Iraiah the Sneak, at your service! I hear you and Mandy go way back.”

Happier words had never been spoken as far as Rusk was concerned.