The Scarlet Assassin

Chapter Forty-Five

I turned to him, hands going to my hips. "And you're a spy for God's sake. How do you get caught?!"

"It was Sorin's fault-"

Sorin scoffed. "Was not. How was I supposed to see a maid standing there?"

"I told you to be the lookout! That's literally all you do! Look. Out."

"We are not fighting about this again."

"If we manage to get out of here," I seethed, breaking up their conversation, "I'm going to kick both of your asses." I reached for the keys and tested out each one in the lock until one finally slid in.

"I'm assuming the prince is dead?" Sorin asked as I bent down behind Rafe and unchained his hands.

"Yes. He's dead."

"Are you sure?" I shot Sorin a glare and snapped,

"Would you like a picture?"

I moved to Rafe's chained feet. "Where's Sophie?" Rafe asked.

I paused, glancing up to meet Rafe's eyes in the dark. Softly, I admitted, "I don't know."

"You don't know?! How do you not know?"

I walked to Sorin and knelt at his feet. "We got separated, and the alarm went off before I could find her."

"Well, how are we going to find her now?!"

"Calm down, Rafael," Sorin said as I unchained his feet, then moved to his hands. "The Scarlet Assassin always has a plan. Right, Vera?" I stayed quiet. Sorin repeated, "Right?"

"Um-"

"Oh, God!" Rafe wailed. "You don't have a plan!"

"Hey, I think I'm doing a pretty damn good job considering all the shit you two fucked up."

"You fucked up the plan!" Rafe exclaimed. "You didn't come back for two hours!"

"I didn't know there was a two-hour Wintertide procession that everybody had to go to. Your girlfriend forgot that little detail."

"Oh God, Sophie! She must be so scared! She's probably-"

"Hey, what did I miss?" A voice came from the entrance of the cell. It was Sophie, unscathed.

While Rafe's mouth fell open, I said, "Nothing much. Just these two idiots being... well, idiots. Anyone see you?"

Sophie shook her head. "No. Elysia helped create a distraction so I could get down here. I figured this would be the first place you'd go." She outstretched her hand, and sitting in her hand was an identical set of keys. "And I got this just in case."

I grinned. "Smart. Good job." Grunting, I took Sorin's arm and helped him up. "Cause if we're going to get out of this, we're going to need a big distraction."

_____________

We managed to get all of the prisoners to stay put long enough for us to unlock all of the cells, but after that, we couldn't stop them all from flooding the staircase and stampeding into the castle.

"Out of all your brilliant plans," Sophie said, watching the prisoners nearly trample each other, "this one is by far the craziest."

"Is this even going to work?" Sorin asked.

"If you have a better idea, I'm open to suggestions," I muttered.

"It'll work," Rafe said.

"It kind of has to," Sophie pointed out.