I know I'm nowhere near as smart as Martel is, but I imagine him talking me through my plan anyway. Or maybe it's my own voice I'm hearing.
I'm last into the shed, and I leave a key in the dirt outside, taking the other with me. Do not make a sound, the voice in my head warns. With shaking hands, I lock the door and hide the other key in the pocket of my skirt.
I do the same at every door we pass—the trapdoor, the one at the bottom of the stairs, the one at the end of the corridor. I leave a trail of keys in the pitch blackness of the underground passages. Davorin leads the way, and I follow behind Ardyan, my hand gripping his so tightly that his fingers are probably numb. He knows his way around down here, though, and he doesn't stumble once.
Finally, we reach the bottom of the spiral stairs and I see a crack of light spilling from under a door. Ardyan had warned me about that—he said there's always been a few candles burning in there, on really long candlesticks.
I wait until Davorin and Ardyan have both gone into the archive before leaving one key outside and locking the door behind us with the other. Being locked in a room with a stranger who hates Shadows should make me nervous, and it does, but Davorin doesn't seem like he's stupid. If he wanted to hurt Ardyan, I don't think he would do it without at least making sure he had a way out. As long as I have the keys, he's trapped. And anyway, he doesn't know how bad I am at finding strands and fighting and all that. He might be braver if it was just him and Ardyan, but maybe he won't risk taking on two of us at once. And Ardyan said that Davorin couldn't use the Shadows, so we have that too.
I lean against the wall, forcing myself to breathe easy. I'm getting way ahead of myself. Davorin has absolutely no reason to want to attack us, and I'm not planning on giving him one. And Ardyan knows him well enough by now; he should know what not to say better than I do.
I jump when I feel a hand on the small of my back, but it's just Ardyan.
"Are you all right?" he asks quietly.
I glance behind him, but I can see the light of the candle Davorin lit down one of the shelf-tunnels. "Yeah," I say with a weak smile, and then I add, "just nervous," but quieter.
Ardyan nods, chewing on his bottom lip. "I'd better go." He jerks his head in Davorin's general direction. "Don't want him to think we're up to something."
I think that was supposed to be a joke, but I can't laugh. "Are you sure he said he can't use the Shadows?"
"Positive. How can he? Magic can't conduct through metal, like it can with skin. We'll be fine." He gives me a quick kiss before going back to Davorin. I watch them for a while. Ardyan seems far more relaxed around the scruffy man than I would be, but there's something in the tense set of his jaw that looks a just little bit like fear.
Just for something to do, I start scanning the nearest bookshelf. They're all dull and boring—maps, plans for some building, a book of letters from some guy to some other guy—and my mind wanders back to Flick. I wonder if she's still sitting under that statue? I didn't see her when Ardyan and I left the castle, but it was dark.
She'll be thinking about what I said about Davorin being the real enemy, I hope. And I hope she chooses to blame him and not Professor Tanvik. She can't win a fight against Tanvik, but maybe, with three of us, we might have a chance against Davorin.
~~~~~
A/N: I can't believe one of my stories finally got ranked, oh my god.