The Flame in the Mist by Kit Grindstaff Read Free Book Online

his favorite, even Nocturna had said so! And he’d refused to kill Marsh. But he
had
let Nocturna drug her; he himself gave her the rose. Even he couldn’t be trusted. Despair speared through her. What would they do to her if they didn’t get what they wanted? The words Nocturna had said not twenty minutes ago sprang to her mind:
Strip the girl of her Powers … gain them for ourselves …
    The truth was as sharp as Drudge’s butchering cleaver.
    “Rattusses,” she whispered. “We have to get out of here. Tonight.” Noodle and Pie trembled. Jemma’s hands, too, were shaking. Like the princess in Marsh’s stories, she was trapped. And terrified.
    She has to find courage, see
, Marsh had always said,
an’ wear it like an armor of Light. That don’t mean she wouldn’t be afraid. Courage is doing what you must, even when fear is snappin’ at your heart.…
    “Come on, you two.” Jemma stood, gathered her packages, and spiraled down the stairs, the rats scurrying alongside.
Take the Stone, steal the keys from Drudge, leave … Take the Stone, steal the keys from Drudge, leave …
Perhaps it wouldn’t be so hard. But when she reached the Bed-Chamber level, she heard loud thumping from below. The hall lamps were blazing. Then came Nocturna’s voice, shrill as a banshee:
    “You fool! You—let—her—go-o-o-o!”
    Shade’s and Feo’s doors flew open. Jemma ducked into her room, Noodle and Pie skidding in behind her. She pinned her ear to her door, and listened as the twins’ footsteps thundered toward the stairs, their voices merging with Nocturna and Nox’s into one babble of hysteria:
“Let her go? Who? NotJemma, surely?” “No, Marsh!” “Shush, you’ll wake Jemma! Do you want her to suspect?” “And what if she does? I just set the Alarm spell.” “Still, go—check on her!”
    Jemma leapt into bed, shoving the packages under her pillow. The rats burrowed in beside her. Seconds later, her door creaked open. She lay still, her heart hammering, as she mimicked the deep breath of sleep. A corner of the sheet peeled back; the acid-and-brimstone smell of Shade’s breath breezed across her cheek, then withdrew.
“Still out cold?”
Feo’s voice, whispering.
“Shush, Feo, you idiot!”
The door closed, and their whispers became one with the now-muted voices drifting up from below.
    They were all in it together. Even Nox and Feo had been watching her for months, she realized now, watching like demons. There was no way she could steal her Stone while they were awake—but no way either that she could linger another second in this sun-forsaken castle like a condemned prisoner awaiting her fate. She would have to risk leaving without the Stone.
    Panic searing under her skin, Jemma threw off her bedclothes, and began ripping the sheets into strips.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Alarm
    Jemma tied one end of her sheet-and-blanket rope to the bedstead, then dropped its other end into the roiling darkness below, praying it was long enough to reach solid ground. Though her room was only on the second floor, the base of the castle below her window was built into a fissure in the crag, and the Mist made it impossible to see how far it was to the bottom.
    She tore open the lilac-clothed bundle, shoved the food and knife on top of the book, then knotted the fabric on either side to secure it, leaving a length at both ends that she tied around her waist. Then, with one last tug of her makeshift rope, she jammed the bed against the wall under the window. Noodle and Pie were sitting on the sill, waiting, their fur whipping in the wind. “It’s now or never, Rattusses,” she gulped. “Into my pockets.”
    Hand over hand, she started down, counting the knots she’d made as she went. One, two … Rain stung her hands. Three knots, four … The sheets were soaked, but at least that made them easier to grip. A lightning flash revealed a misty-blue chasm with Mord-knew-what jagged rocks at the bottom, waiting to dash her