“Let’s do it,” Adelia said as her tail flicked the air behind her.

  Connor opened the door and they slipped out. He paused a moment to listen for a patrol but heard none, so he turned and locked the door to her room as quickly as possible then led the way back up the corridor.

  He paused to look through the keyhole and saw that the hallway ahead of them was empty. He nodded to Adelia and opened the door.

  They made it almost to the door at the end of the lower security section when Connor saw a slight shadow move behind the small gap between the door and the floor.

  Connor’s eyes widened. He grabbed Adelia by the arm and pulled her to the room with his cell. He opened the door and dragged her in after him before closing the door behind them. Connor and Adelia stood back against the wall, out of view of the viewport, and waited in quiet stillness as Connor silently prayed they’d been fast enough.

  The viewport in the door slid open. Then, after a moment it slid shut again.

  Connor let out the breath he’d been holding. He looked at Adelia as a smile came to his lips. A familiar action that for a moment took him back to how things had been between them before…

  She had the same kind of smile. But, the moment faltered and died as the look of her face brought him back to reality. Her own smile softened but remained alive.

  He wasn’t sure what to make of that.

  Connor knelt down and peered through the keyhole. He saw the patrol checking another cell and moving further down the hallway.

  He waited in silence as the guard moved out of sight. Then waited a little longer to give him time to move on into the higher security section. A faint fear that he and Adelia had missed something spiked inside him… but no… they’d been careful. Still, the fear remained.

  He couldn’t wait to be off the ship. The tension of being caught grew by the second.

  He opened the door and slipped out with Adelia into the now empty hallway, making sure to close the door to the room with his cell before moving toward the door out of the prison section.

  He looked through the keyhole, all too aware that the patrol guard would be circling back to their position any moment now.

  The way seemed clearer than before as the guards that’d been conversing off to one side were no longer in view. He made a mental note to be cautious as they were likely around somewhere and Adelia’s silhouette was distinctly more feminine than his own.

  He hadn’t seen a single female guard aboard the ship so hiding her from view even at a distance seemed wise.

  He opened the door and moved out with Adelia following at his heels.

  They closed the door and then headed down the closest set of stairs onto the deck below.

  The deck below was far more open than the previous decks with a passageway going around either side of rooms that were concentrated down the middle of the ship.

  Many of the rooms were exposed, their walls serving more as a way to organize their contents than any kind of security.

  One such room near the stairs held neatly rolled sails. On either side of the sail room were a pair of even more open ‘rooms’ that held coils of rope thicker than Connor’s waist. Air elementals, which looked like vaguely humanoid swirling clouds of fog wearing thick enchanted metal bracers, were drying out the rope with a gentle breeze.

  They seemed focused on their work and Connor doubted the creatures would recognize him. But, he went the other way and avoided attracting their attention even so.

  He and Adelia moved swiftly and silently up, heading fore toward the stem of the ship.

  Connor briefly looked through some of the rooms, but apart from an impressive store of wealth in the purser’s store, it was largely what he expected to find in terms of cabins and medical supplies.

  He found a hatch that opened into the hold and climbed down a ladder into the bowels of the ship with Adelia following close behind him.

  The hold was filled with crates and barrels of various sizes. Most of it was food and water. With a specially enchanted section that kept the food stored within freezing cold.

  It was something to know, but it hadn’t been the kind of critical piece of information Connor had desired.

  “How much longer do you want to look around?” Adelia asked, her breath steaming in the refrigerated area.

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  “A little more in the hold, the prison sections, and then we’re getting out of here,” Connor said.

  “I’d rather we left now,” Adelia said, “that or kill the crew in their sleep. Then, we can look around all we like.”

  The way she spoke as though killing several hundred men were simply a pleasant way to make their lives more convenient chilled Connor’s blood.

  It shouldn’t have, he supposed, it wasn’t as though she hadn’t always said such things. But now, he couldn’t help wondering whether she was even capable of feeling emotions like remorse or empathy.

  She seemed to. At least with him… but perhaps that had all been a lie.

  Their shoes crunched softly on the ballast covering the floor as they moved through the hold.

  “We might be able to pull it off if we were careful… but there’s no telling what they have to defend themselves with that we don’t know about. They have elementals and I suspect those would be tricky even for you. And there’s Erik as well… something about him puts my instincts on edge,” Connor said.

  “Erik?” Adelia asked.

  “The robed man. Seems like a wizard but I never hear him casting spells. It’s like he doesn’t need to,” Connor said.

  “Like you?” Adelia asked.

  “No,” Connor said, “far more powerful, I think.”

  “Wouldn’t matter if we killed him in his sleep,” Adelia suggested.

  “Perhaps,” Connor said, “but it’s an unnecessary risk. We wouldn’t be able to sail this ship just the two of us anyway. I’d rather we didn’t do anything to jeopardize us getting somewhere safe where we can regroup.”

  “And yet, here we are,” Adelia muttered.

  “We won’t be long,” Connor assured her.

  He pried open a crate and sucked in a breath as he revealed it to be filled with enchanted ballista bolts. They were the length of spears, with fletching at their base. Each of the ones in this particular crate were made out of solid dark iron.

  Adelia gave a low, appreciative whistle. “They have some nice toys. Expensive,” she said.

  Connor nodded. “Any idea what the enchantments do?” he asked.

  Adelia hesitated.

  “Not much point in pretending it’s not your field anymore,” Connor said.

  Adelia nodded. “I suppose not,” she said and leaned in closer to inspect the runes.

  Connor could barely even see them in the dim glow of the magical torches which were just barely enough for him not to bump into everything. But Adelia seemed to have no such trouble.

  “Hmm…” Adelia said, “Explosive fire.”

  “Are they volatile? Can we set them off somehow?” Connor asked.

  Adelia shook her head. “They’re too well made. They should only ignite after they’re fired. We might be able to tamper with them, but if we succeeded, we’d probably blow ourselves up too,” she said.

  “That would be… less than ideal,” Connor said.

  Adelia smirked. “Yes,” she said.

  “But if they explode, they can’t be reusable… why would they use dark iron?” Connor asked.

  Adelia shrugged. “The shrapnel would be more lethal than steel,” she said.

  “But it must be prohibitively expensive,” Connor said.

  “Maybe not to them,” Adelia said.

  Connor checked another crate further away just in case the one they’d looked at had been a special type of ammunition to be used only when necessary.

  The second crate also contained dark iron ballista bolts. As did the third.

  Connor shook his head. “How could even Victor struggle to learn more about a group this powerful,” Connor muttered.

  “They’re careful,” Adelia said.

  Connor nodded absently. “I’ve seen enough. We can’t afford to look through everything down here. Let’s check the prisons and get out of here,” he said.

  “We could just leave now. It’s unlikely they have anyone else aboard that’s worth rescuing,” Adelia said.

  “What if they have Victor on board?” Connor asked as he watched her reactions carefully.

  A flicker of concern seemed to move behind her eyes but it could’ve been his imagination. Or fantastic acting.

  “I doubt it,” Adelia said, “but I know you’ll insist on checking. We both know where they’re holding Victor. I don’t see why they’d move him. You just want to see if they have anyone else we know in here.”

  “And you don’t?” Connor asked.

  Adelia shrugged. “I suppose every ally we can get could be useful to us,” she said, “I’m just not sure any of them are worth the risk.”

  Connor didn’t know what to say to that. It wasn’t as though the Adelia he’d known wouldn’t have said exactly that. But now… he found it harder to dismiss her callous words.

  At least I’m relatively sure it really is her. Why would a shapeshifter pick such a difficult to trust form and then say things that keep me on edge? Connor thought.

  They returned up a ladder onto the orlop deck where the air elementals remained focused on their task. Connor and Adelia climbed up a set of stairs onto the prison deck they’d been held on. It was conveniently empty again which set Connor’s nerves on edge. He couldn’t help wondering where the other guards had gone.

  He supposed it was perfectly natural for them to grow tired of standing around and move elsewhere. Perhaps to pilfer a snack or two from the galley.

  But it just seemed too damned convenient for anything to appear to go well and it only served to wind his nerves tighter.

  He knelt and looked through the keyhole into the unexplored prison section opposite where he and Adelia had been held. The hallway was empty, so he unlocked the door with his keys. It wasn’t difficult to find the right one given that Adelia’s room and cell had reduced the number of options he didn’t know down to barely a handful.

  It seemed that most of the cells, prison sections, and room doors used the same three keys too which made it even easier.

  They slipped into the hallway and Connor checked through the viewport into every room, inspecting the contents personally while Adelia played lookout at the keyhole.

  He could’ve had her look through half of them and finish faster… but he still didn’t fully trust her yet.

  Not that it would’ve mattered. The cells contained more goblins and grych with a few empty cells.

  Again, Connor wondered what the Syndicate was doing with such creatures. Who their targets were and why.

  But, he’d find no answers here. So, after no more than a minute or two at most, he and Adelia took the nearest stairway up to the deck above.

  They headed straight toward what’d looked like another prison section. As they came around a mast rising through the centerline of the ship, Connor saw the handle of the prison door turning.

  Before he had time to process and react to the fact they were about to stumble straight into a patrol, Adelia grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked him away at blinding speed. She whirled with him back around the mast they’d passed in a blur of supernatural motion that made Connor’s head spin as his stomach lurched.

  He heard the prison section door open as Adelia pressed herself against him, hiding both of them from view on the opposite side of the mast from the guard.

  He and Adelia both listened carefully to the heavy footfalls of the guard and as he came around the mast, they went the other way.

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