Freedom was written in blood, and I was about to learn exactly what that price meant.
The signal came in silence. At midnight, my chamber door stood slightly ajar, something that had never happened during my confinement.
On my windowsill, barely visible in the moonlight, lay a silver pin shaped like a crescent moon. Just like the map had promised.
My hands shook as I moved to the wardrobe. The loose panel came away easily now, revealing the narrow opening I'd discovered behind it.
The tunnel mouth yawned before me like a hungry throat, damp air carrying the scent of earth and something else, fear, maybe, or desperation. I slipped inside.
The stone walls were cold against my palms as I felt my way forward. Carved marks guided me through the darkness, triangles, half-moons, faint chalk lines that glowed weakly in the thin light filtering from somewhere ahead.
Each step took me deeper into the palace's forgotten bowels, away from silk and gold and toward something that felt like hope.
The tunnel opened into a larger space near the underground cistern. Water dripped steadily from somewhere above, echoing in the darkness like a countdown. Three figures waited in the shadows.
Kieran stood flanked by two Faes I didn't recognize, a woman with silver hair and wings that shimmered even in the dim light, and a young man who couldn't have been more than twenty.
Kieran's face was a map of bruises from Luka's fists, but his eyes were focused, alert, alive with purpose.
He touched my hand briefly when I reached them. No words, no time for anything but the desperate communication of skin against skin, and we moved.
The route took us through passages I'd never known existed, past storerooms and abandoned chambers that spoke of the palace's ancient history.
The other Fae moved like ghosts, their bare feet silent on stone while my slippers seemed to echo with every step.
We were almost to the outer corridor when everything went wrong, the hallway that should have been empty was guarded. Two palace guards stood at attention, their presence exactly where it shouldn't be according to the carefully mapped patrol routes.
"Someone tipped them off," the silver-haired woman hissed.
Before anyone could react, one of the guards turned. His eyes widened in recognition, his mouth opening to shout an alarm.
The young Fae man moved faster than thought, his blade flashing in the torchlight. But the guard was quicker, his sword catching the boy in the chest with a wet sound that made my stomach lurch.
I watched the light go out in those young eyes, watched him crumple to the stone floor while his blood spread in an ever-widening pool. I wanted to scream, to rage, to do something other than stand there frozen in horror.
But there was no time.
"Run," Kieran commanded, his own knife already in his hand as the second guard advanced.
We ran through blood. The silver-haired woman led the way, her wings folded tight against her back as we sprinted through corridors that blurred together in panic and adrenaline.
Behind us, shouts erupted as more guards discovered the body, their boots thundering against stone in pursuit.
The outer gate appeared ahead of us, a massive iron-bound oak that stood between us and the night beyond. One final lock, one last barrier between captivity and freedom.
I fumbled with the key the servant had pressed into my palm weeks ago, my fingers slipping on the metal as footsteps echoed closer behind us. The lock mechanism was old, stubborn, refusing to yield despite my desperate efforts.
"Penelope," Kieran said quietly, positioning himself between me and the approaching sound of pursuit. His knife caught the moonlight streaming through the gate's iron bars.
"I've got it," I whispered, forcing myself to slow down, to be deliberate despite the terror clawing at my chest. The lock clicked.
We sprinted into the forest beyond the palace walls, branches clawing at my dress like grasping fingers. My lungs burned with each breath, my legs screaming in protest as we plunged deeper into the darkness between the trees.
Behind us, the palace lights blurred into streaks of gold and amber, growing smaller but never disappearing entirely.
There was no turning back now. We ran until our bodies couldn't carry us another step, until the sounds of pursuit faded into the whisper of wind through leaves. When we finally collapsed in a small clearing, gasping and shaking, the silence felt almost sacred.
"Are we-" I started to ask.
"Free," Kieran finished, his voice rough with exhaustion. "For now."
But as we lay there in the darkness, listening to our own ragged breathing and the distant sounds of search parties forming, one thought echoed in my mind: Freedom was just the beginning.
Now came the hard part, staying alive long enough to figure out what to do with it.