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“Sorry,” I mumble, naked, as she checks the pockets and hems of my clothing for weapons and lockpicks. Unfortunately, she finds my lockpicks and gives me a smirk, removing them from the fabric. She gives me a quick bodily inspection, but thankfully, nothing invasive.

I eye my knife on the table beside her. Maybe I could grab it and dash out. Naked. What a great idea. The woman is looking at me from the corner of her eye. “Go ahead. I will punch you through the wall before you have the chance to stab me, girl.”

“I’m naked, not exactly a great escape plan.”

A small laugh. “What’s your name?” the woman asks, handing my clothes back.

Getting dressed, I reply, “Mika,” answering truthfully, but leaving out the Ofnemoris part for now. It will take them a while to submit a Patron number check to Osraed, and maybe I can get out of this before then. “What’s yours?”

“Liesolette. Down you go. Don’t bother holding your breath for the smell, it only gets worse.”

Liesolette hadn’t exaggerated. The air is thick and humid. The further down we go—and we go a long way down—the worse it gets. Lanterns are lit periodically down the stairs.

Reaching the bottom, the stench of feces, urine, and unwashed bodies is unbearable. I’m trying not to think about the fact that I can taste it in the air. Too late. I gag. There is not a single window for fresh air. Liesolette huffs and pulls a kerchief from her pocket, wrapping it around my head and under my nose. It smells like jasmine.

“You’ll get used to it, but this will help until then. I want it back, though.”

Baffled by her kindness, I thank her sincerely.

“Far end and to the right you go,” she says, pointing.

I wasn’t given back the cheap, laced shoes I’d bought on our first day here. The sludgy ground, covered in old pieces of hay and nondescript lumps, is squishing through my toes as I walk to where I was directed.

Liesolette opens the cell door and locks it behind me after I step inside. She lets me know that the channels of running water through the middle of the cell are my toilet, along with the discarded waste passing through from everywhere else in the castle.

“Oi, you still alive in there?” Liesolette calls into the cell on the left of the back wall, an empty cell between us.

“Unfortunately, Lottie,” calls a voice that sends a hot knife into my spine.

Unable to make my body do more than breathe, I listen to the sound of the guard moving up the stairs leading out of the dungeon. I can’t take my eyes away from the prone form huddled on a metal bed with a straw mattress that matches the one in my cell.

“Tovi?” a voice says. It’s my voice, but it’s disconnected.

The head snaps up and looks at me. It’s her. Her once beautiful brunette hair hangs in lanky clumps around a filthy, slightly sunken face. But it’s her. She stands and comes closer to the bars. Her clothes are loose and filthy too, having lost a bit of weight in the moon since she ran off.

I take off the kerchief covering my face so she can see me.

“Mika?” the familiar voice asks, gripping the bars as she tries to look at me. “How are you here?”

“Attempting to rescue Amarilyss, remember?”

She flinches as if stung. I’m still frozen in place. She looks like shit.

“Is getting jailed part of the plan?”

“No. How are you here?” I rasp in disbelief.

“Got caught looking for Lyss myself.”

“How long have you been in here?” My heart is racing, trying to beat faster than my rage running circles around my stomach.

Tovi shrugs. “I have no idea, but I've been fed seventeen dinners, I think.”

A gushing sound followed by trickling and dripping interrupts us. I have the pleasant experience of watching someone else’s shit and piss come down a pipe and travel along the open channel at my feet. It eventually turns and connects with a main channel that all cells feed into. The main channel empties out noisily into a hole in the ground that I can only assume leads outside somewhere.

I immediately put the kerchief back on. The stench is overpowering me, and I’m glad I didn’t have lunch. Tovi is pacing, periodically looking at me before frowning and focusing on her hands.

“Why?” I ask in a small voice. There’s no need to clarify, she must know what I’m really asking.