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It’s too much of a coincidence that the Toad Lord would address the ship right after our meeting. He’s telling his men to come watch the three proud Aurelians ravish their helpless little slave. He wants to lord the power he has over the three, proud warriors; and to drive their humiliation home as deeply as he can.

A Toad suddenly stumbles around the corner in front of us, and then stops – frozen in his tracks. His bulbous eyes widen as he gazes up at the terrifying sight of the three Aurelians, and the slimy creature hops away in terror.

I can hear his feet splashing all the way down the corridor, echoing his lopsided pace as he escapes. After Marcel so calmly decapitated the Toad guard earlier, they must be terrified of what the Aurelians might do if wronged or slighted.

The Toad’s escape might be undignified – but no more than my predicament. I’m being bounced up and down with each stride of Marcel’s long legs as he carries me to their living quarters.

Lucius slams his hands against the door button, and with a hiss we’re welcomed back to the only place I’ve felt safe on this Toad mothership. The dry, merciless heat of the Aurelian’s living quarters is a welcome change to the wet, clammy atmosphere throughout the rest of the ship – the air that clings to you, leaving you sticky and uncomfortable.

Marcel sets me down, unclipping the leash from my throat and tossing it aside. The veins of his huge, muscular neck are twitching and his temple is pounding with barely contained rage.

The three Aurelians are anger incarnate right now – whereas I’m shocked by how steady I am.

My mind feels…

Clear

For the first time since I’d watched my best friend die horribly, my mind is clear.

If the Aurelians are going to stew in anger, someone needs to push them towards rational thought.

“We need to get Tessa off the ship,” I declare matter-of-factly.

The Aurelians are clouding their judgement with emotion right now. Their pride is hurt after they’d had their dominance challenged by the Toad Lord - in front of the Bullfrogs, no less. Aurelians are a fiercely proud species, and Lord Oblog is using that against them – knowing he can manipulate the Aurelians by keeping them furious and off balance

Lucius ignores my words.

Instead, he strides to the enormous dining table and slams his heavy fist down across the surface of it. Thecrackfills the room and the thick wood splinters like matchsticks beneath his powerful blow.

He punches the table again and again, cracking it first in half, and then into splinters. His knuckles are bloody and raw by the time he’s finished. Then, Lucius grabs a chair and flings it across the room – all the way into the kitchen. The wood splinters against the wall.

Finally, he stands there panting with exertion. Every vein in his body is filled with blood right now, and his muscles are pumped and tense

“Stop that!” I cry. “You’re not helping anything by doing that! Get your mind straight, Lucius!”

He turns to me, venom in his eyes.

“We’re going to fight our way out.We will not rape you!”

I swallow.

I suddenly realize that for all their strength, and power, and the lethal Orb-Blades they wield, I’m suddenly the one with the power. If I gave the word, the Aurelians wouldn’t think twice. They’d try to cut their way through the legions of Toads and Bullfrogs to find a way off the ship.

With the violence apparent in Lucius’s body and the hatred burning in his eyes, I don’t doubt for a second how far he could wade his way through Oblog’s crew – leaving behind him a sea of blood. He and his battle-brothers would cut down everyone and everything in their path, whether Toad-meat or Sentinel steel.

They might even get me off this ship alive.

But there’s no way they could save Tessa – noway.

She’s the prisoner of Lord Oblog right now, and my skin crawls just at the thought of it. He’s one of the most powerful Toad Lords in the confederacy – one of the ten ‘Fingers’ of the Toad King – and his quarters would be guarded like a fortress. For the Aurelians to assault them would be suicide.

But the alternative is to flee without her. I’d be sentencing her to the same fate we’d tried to rescue her from. Okay, so Tessa might not be tortured or punished by Lord Oblog – there’s no profit in that – but I have no doubt that Oblog would quickly pawn her offto the Bullfrog who’d wanted to buy her in the first place.

If the Aurelians fled, with me in tow, there’d be no incentive for him not to.

I gulp dryly.

“There’s no other way. Wehaveto go through with this…performance.”