Of Caverns and Casters ✓ [TLRQ #1]

Chapter 39 - Leavi

I pull us into an adjacent corridor. I'm not exactly sure where it leads, but I am sure that if we stay in the main way, we're going to get caught. We'll just have to find a different way out.

The boy stirs. His head turns back and forth, as though trying to take in the rushing walls, and his breaths come loud and fast. "No," he moans. "No, I—"

"Shut him up," Sean hisses.

From the halls behind us, the shouting increases.

"No one's going to hear him." The boy twists in our arms, his fevered gaze catching mine for an instant before he goes limp again. "Let's get him out of here."

"No! No, no—" He thrashes in our arms, movements surprisingly wild for someone so weak.

"What the blazes is wrong with him?" Sean exclaims.

I pause, struggling to keep from dropping the boy. "Set him down."

"What? We don't have time for this, Leavi! We need to be—"

"Set him down, Sean! We can't carry him like this."

The boy's arm jerks, popping me in the mouth. I flinch away, and Sean all but drops the boy to the ground.

He calms some. Sucking on my lip, I crouch beside him. The guards' cries still ring in the background, and my heart beats faster than it should.

"What's wrong?" I inquire gently.

The boy's eyes don't quite see me. "My cloak," he mutters. "My cloak. I need my cloak. I need my..."

"We need to move, Leavi."

Sean goes to lift him back up, but the boy becomes frenzied again. "My cloak," he groans. "My cloak. My—"

Startlingly close, a man yells, "Go get help!"

Anxiety is lightning in my blood. I hurriedly wave Sean back and take the boy's face in my hands, forcing him to focus on me. Deliberately, I ask, "Where is it?"

Faint light shines behind the haze in his eyes. "Black door. Black door," he murmurs to himself again.

I stare at him, confused. Most of the doors in the manor are brown. I don't remember ever seeing a black door except when—

"Leavi, come on." Sean grabs my shoulder, but I shrug him off. His voice is tight. "We need to get out of here. Now. If you'd prefer to do it with your head still attached, that is. Let's go."

"Stay here."

"What? Are you trying to get us killed?"

"No. I'm going to get his cloak."

I steal toward the main hallway, but Sean cuts me off. "The guy's talking out of his head, Leavi!"

"And fighting us like a madman! We're not going to get him out of here like that. Now, stay here." I push around him, heading down the hall.

"'Black door' isn't exactly a foolproof direction!"

I pad the last few steps to the hall's end. "It is to me."

Peeking around the corner, I peer down the long, main hallway. Near the end, smoke billows from the mouth of the cleaning closet's corridor. A guard runs out of another hall and into the smoke, hauling a bucket of water. I glance over my shoulder. "I'll be right back. Just stay quiet and out of sight."

He spreads his hands in outraged bafflement. "We're in the middle of an empty hallway! How do you expect us to stay out of sight?"

"Then stay quiet." Before he can say anything else, I dart across the hall.