Emily smiles warmly. “It looks beautiful on you,” she says when I study myself in her mirror. “It was always much too long for me.”

She walks up behind me and puts a hand on my shoulder. I inwardly cringe at the touch, but don’t let it show on my face. Emily is being astoundingly nice to me and I don’t want to insult her. I am finding it easier to be around her though. My breaths stay even and my limbs stay relaxed, so that’s progress I guess. “Thank you,” I say.

“May I do your hair?”

I nod, too stunned to do anything else, and she leads me to a chair in the corner.

It’s a strange sensation for someone else to brush my hair. Since my mother died when I was born and I lived out in the woods with only my father and Jace, I’ve never had any female companionship. Jace would have laughed if I asked him to brush my hair.

I find myself actually enjoying the sensation of Emily’s quick fingers braiding and twisting my hair and I relax into the soft touches with my eyes closed. She steps back to admire her work in the mirror and I open my eyes. She’s left a few wispy tendrils down to frame my face and has used tiny braids to pull the rest of it back from my face and create an intricate twist on the crown of my head. I’ve never seen anything like it. “Wow.”

Emily claps her hands. I’m beginning to get the impression that she’s rather pleased with herself. “Oh Jax, I always knew you were gorgeous. Your hair is the perfect shade of red to set off this dress.”

My face heats with a blush and I turn away from the mirror. “So what exactly are we going to do?”

“Dane keeps a spare set of keys to the holding cells in his office.” She waves off my questioning look and continues, “He will be officiating the Promising ceremony tonight and that’s going to be when you go in. We’ll meet up once you have the keys. The entrance will be guarded, but I’m known for delivering food to prisoners and we can make it seem like you’re just keeping me company or something. Depending on who’s on duty, one or both the guards will look the other way.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Yours won’t be the first prisoner to have a little help escaping the holding cells.”

“Thank you Emily,” I say. “For all of this. For everything.”

“You’re welcome.” Her eyes bore into me and she swallows. “Just promise me, once you’ve gotten Jace, you’ll come back here. There aren’t many people strong enough to go against Dane, but I think you and your brother are. There’s something special about you two. Even Dane knew it. He hadn’t let any young male outsiders inside in years— until he let your brother in. He hasn’t forced you to work and didn’t force you into the dormitory. He wanted you here so he’s let the rules slide for you. I don’t know what that means, but…” She reaches over and grabs my hand. I don’t even flinch. “I think with your help we could change things here.”

There’s so much more here than I had ever noticed. Have I really been in this much of a fog to miss the undercurrents in Bridgelake? What else have I missed? I want to know more, but there’s no time. Once I have Jace back safe and sound, then I can focus on learning more about how I can help Emily. Wait. To join her cause I’d have to stick around and that’s not in the plan.

I study Emily’s face, this girl who’s had so much tragedy in her life and still pushed through my walls to try to befriend me, who is helping me now even though the consequences could be awful for her.

My earlier conversation with Jace plays in my head. It can’t be just us forever. He’s right. “I promise Emily. I’ll get Jace and then do whatever I can to help.”

SIX

Although Emily’s plan is good, some of the details could have used a little more thought. The dress, clearly my least favorite part, works like a charm. In it I’m just another decorative sheep girl waiting for the festival and I’m able to walk down the streets without really being noticed. I practice my fake smile and my hair flip when I see a couple soldiers and they just wave me on, no recognition in their eyes. So, getting to the building that holds Dane’s office is a breeze. It’s how I’m going to get into his office that’s a problem.

It’s full dark now, but the front door of the building is lit up and two guards flank the door. No matter how nice my dress is or how much I bat my eyelashes, I’m not going to get past them. Based on what Emily told me though, Dane’s office is toward the back and it has a window.

I slink around the back of the building. Wonderful. Emily’s information would have been really helpful if that window weren’t about six feet off the ground and just slightly out of my reach. The brick won’t give me enough handholds to climb it and even jumping still leaves the windowsill beyond the grip of my fingers.

Good thing I know how to climb a tree. One of the outreaching branches of the poplar tree growing near the corner of the building looks like it might be perfect for this task. Cursing the stupid dress, I wrap my legs around the trunk and use my arms to pull myself up until I can grab the lowest branch. My inner thighs are scraped all to hell, but I make it up until I’m resting at the branch I saw from below.

It’s still a bit of a leap from the branch to the windowsill, but at least the window’s open. The branch creaks under me as I shimmy further out from the trunk and send out a silent plea that the branch will hold. The fall wouldn’t kill me, but it wouldn’t be very pleasant either. I rise into a crouch, my thigh muscles straining to hold my balance.

When I push off, there’s a loud crack and my leap starts a few inches lower than it should have as the branch falls. I make it across, my shoulders protesting as I hang down against the outer wall, my fingers scrabbling for purchase on the window sill. My biceps shake and my knuckles whiten around the ledge. Slowly raising my body, I collapse into the room, lying on my back for a moment while my breath comes back to me.

I stand, rolling my shoulders and clenching and unclenching my fingers a few times. Shaking my limbs gently loosens my muscles and gets me back on track.

Moonlight filters in through the window, giving me just enough light to work with. I start with Dane’s desk. There’s nothing on top of it, but it has plenty of drawers. The first one opens with a slight click. At least it’s unlocked. Of course, that drawer is not the one with the keys. The next drawer down is also unlocked and so is the third. No keys in any of them. The wide drawer in the center, however, resists my attempts to open it. Great. I need a key to find the keys. Maybe he keeps it nearby.

My fingers trace the underside of the drawer. Come on. Just one bit of luck this evening would be nice. A rough edge brushes against my index finger. It’s tape, and my fingers quickly determine that it’s holding a small key to the bottom of the drawer. Yes! I crouch down, twist my body so I’m facing the ceiling and crawl under the desk, picking at the tape with my fingernail.

The door swings open and the overhead light turns on, freezing me in place. How far does the front of the desk come down? Am I visible from the other side? Turning my head to check, any movement really, would only draw attention to myself if the desk does not extend all the way to the floor. I know this, but I still have to fight the urge to look.

My rocketing heartbeat is loud in my ears and my raised arms are starting to shake. Don’t move. Just breathe.

“Nothing here Daniel,” calls out a voice from the doorway. “The noise you heard was probably just that branch falling.”

There’s no response from Daniel, or at least none I can hear, and the light goes off. The bar of light shining on the wall from the hallway narrows and then disappears as the door closes. A loud breath flows past my lips in one long whoosh. Daniel’s not one of the guards at the cells, that’s good news. Though if I get caught here… he’s the last person I want to run into besides Dane himself.