I think about his words, chew on them. What would I have done? I honestly don’t know. I can’t imagine spending one extra day imprisoned if there was even a chance of getting out—but then I haven’t spent seventeen years in here. Yet. I might just want a sure thing myself by then.
“But you think there’s a way out for us?” Flint asks. Remy nods. “Like I said, it’s going to take a whole lot of luck and even more money…and that’s only if we survive the trip. But there’s a chance. It’s happened before.” That last comment perks up all our ears. We only knew about the dragon who got out—and he’d made a deal with the Crone for a flower. There was another way that didn’t require me signing a devil’s pact with a witch and her pizza oven? Well, super awesome that we’re only learning about it now. “Okay, so what’s the big escape plan?” I ask. But before they can say anything, there’s a scraping sound on the floor across the room. “What’s that?” I ask, even as Hudson moves so that I’m once again behind him. “Dinner,” Calder answers, and though she doesn’t sound happy at the prospect, she also doesn’t sound traumatized. Which is something, at least, especially since my stomach has decided to let me know that it is well aware that it has been many hours since I’ve eaten. “They feed us through a hole in the floor?” Flint sounds horrified. “That floor panel is the only access in or out of this room,” Remy explains. “There’s no door, no window, nothing. Just the tube that dropped you in and this tiny door the guards have to move us to unblock. Oh, and the fold-down staircase right below it that they have to activate.” “Move us?” Flint asks. “What does that mean?” “You’ll see,” Remy answers. His matter-of-fact tone should reassure me—he’s pretty blasé about the situation, after all—but instead, it freaks me out. So far I’ve done what I think is a pretty good job of keeping my panic at bay, but the idea that there is literally no way out of this place except waiting for the guards to not only open our cell but to unblock the entrance completely… Well, let’s say it makes me want out of here right freaking now. I mean, does this place not answer to a fire marshal? Calder walks over to the now-open hole in the floor and pulls out a triple-stacked tray.“You came on a good day,” she tells us. “It’s chicken and mashed potatoes.” Not going to lie. The food choice kind of blows my mind. I don’t know what I expected to eat at the most diabolical prison ever created, but it definitely wasn’t my mother’s favorite comfort meal. As she’s handing out the covered trays to Flint and me—and a cup of what I assume is blood to Hudson—we all settle on the floor again and dig in. After we take a few bites, Hudson puts aside his distrust of Remy long enough to ask, “Can you tell us a little more about how this place works? Our powers feel like they’re gone.” “That’s because they’re blocked,” Calder says. “Like, really blocked.” “By the cuffs on our wrists?” Hudson asks. “I’ve worn a cuff like this before—it’s never really cut me off from my power, though. Not like this.” “Because it’s not just that cuff.” Remy takes a bite of a dinner roll and motions with it at the room. “Look around. The cuffs block all your magic, even shifting magic, but let’s say we break those…” Calder shakes her head. “You’d still have no abilities. The cell itself is a cuff.” “Oh, shit. That’s brilliant,” Flint says, and the look on his face is half respect and half horror as he glances around the room. “That’s why the cell is all metal.” “The whole outside prison wall is a giant cuff,” Remy tells us. “Then each cell is a cuff in a long chain of cuffs that, when locked together, make another cuff. And then, of course, there’s the cuffs on your wrists.” “Four cuffs?” Flint asks, and for once, he seems totally cowed. “There are four separate cuffs between me and my magic?” He shakes his head. “No wonder I can’t feel it at all.” That’s why my gargoyle string has completely disappeared. It’s locked away, hidden under one layer of metal after another, until there really is nothing left. I push my food around on my plate, my appetite suddenly gone. The cruelty seems unfathomable. I understand that this is prison. I understand that powerful beings have to be contained. But they’re using safeguards upon safeguards upon safeguards upon safeguards to ensure that people can’t access something that is as much a part of them as their heart or their blood… It’s beyond horrible. It’s an actual violation. “And just think,” Remy says grimly. “We’re the lucky ones. At least without a cuff, I have access to some of my magic. I can’t imagine how the rest of you lot get by with none. It’s a plain tragedy.” “Lucky?” I ask. “How so?” “We’re in the East Wheel, which is the political prisoner and petty-crime side. If you go over to the West Wheel—where the real criminals are—there are even more layers of protection.” I don’t even want to think about it. But then, I realize, I don’t have a choice. We didn’t plan for the prison layout because we didn’t know about it—it’s a tightly held secret. But that means… “Do you know where the blacksmith is?” I ask. “On the East Wheel or the West one? Because if he’s in the West Wheel…” “We are totally screwed,” Flint finishes for me. “And then some,” Hudson agrees. “He’s somewhere else entirely,” Remy tells us. And maybe I would be relieved if he didn’t have such a wary look on his face. “So where is he, then?” I ask as my stomach cramps in dread. Remy and Calder exchange a look. “He’s in the Pit, Grace,” he answers reluctantly. 114