Alnwick Chronicles

Eight

Skyla

"We should run," I say, lying on the ground and panting. Adalyn groans.

We're in a sort of meadow, with half-dead plants with no flowers or fruits, and a couple of dry trees.

"Nah, they won't be able to get us," replies Kelly on the grass next to me. "The closest entrance is at least 15 kilometers away."

I jerk up. "How do you know that?" Everyone else gets up too. Now that the action is over and the adrenaline rush has subsided, I'm starting to question exactly who our accomplice is.

"Yeah, and why were you imprisoned?" Aerith sounds suspicious too.

Kelly looks around to make sure we're alone, then heaves a sigh before beginning her story. "I'll start at the beginning. I got involved with Cold Hollow a few years ago by accident. They offered me a job as long as I promised not to ask questions and maintain perfect secrecy. I was not very well off then, financially, so I took it.

At first it was just menial chores, like auto repair, but after a while I was made the driver of a transport between Cold Hollow and one of the eighteen divisions of the Metropola. I rented an apartment there, and started working as a bartender at one of the rich Metropolan clubs on the weekends. That was my cover, the only job my neighbours knew about."

Aerith interrupts, "How does that explain-"

"I'm getting there.

So, as a driver, I got to visit Cold Hollow a lot more than before. Which is how I know about most of the entrances. However, I still didn't know exactly what they did. The goods in the transport were usually things like metal, wood, cloth, medicines, and stuff, so I just assumed they were industrialists. Probably manufacturing things illegally or something, so they didn't want anyone to find out."

She pauses for a second before continuing. "Then, about a week back, I got really suspicious when one of the loads contained gunpowder and chemicals."

I'm taken aback. "Gunpowder? Are you sure?"

She nods. "I kept a little sample to show to... a friend of mine. He confirmed it."

I look at the twins. They look as shocked as I feel.

Guns were successfully banned in Alnwick two decades ago, as part of the "Peace Campaign" the Queen had going on. Since then, they have only been used for international security. Even her own Guard were given swords instead.

But then around seven or eight years later, a fight broke out at a public place in the Metropola, and a Guard apparently slit a man's throat. That man happened to be an important minister in the Royal Court.

It was all over the newspapers for almost three months, and it sent the people into a frenzy. The Queen handled the problem by changing the official weapon from swords to metal batons for all the Guards in the country. This calmed everyone down, even though a lot of people still unofficially carried swords and knives with them.

But never guns. Guns practically went extinct in Alnwick.

Which is why the last part of Kelly's story sounds unbelievable.

"It's Caelyn, by the way."

I snap out of my daze to look at her. "Huh?"

"My name's Caelyn. Not Kelly. I already know your real names, Aerith and Adalyn, so might as well tell you mine."

Right. Aerith had told me we were using fake names, but I forgot that when we were tied up in that room. "I'm Skyla," is all I say.

"You still haven't told us how you got yourself imprisoned," mentions Adalyn.

"Yeah. So when I saw the gunpowder and all those things, I started snooping around," continues Caelyn. "Long story short, I found out that they were planning to attack some of Hadleigh's most important trade vessels. The first victim would be one called The Nesbitt. I figured they would... bomb it."

"Landmines." I mutter.

"Huh?"

"They didn't bomb it, they set up landmines. Or underwater mines, I guess."

"Oh." She pauses and inhales deeply. "It horrified me, how many people would be killed and how much damage would be done. So I confronted Wren and threatened to go to the Queen if she went forward with it. All it did was land me in jail."

Caelyn

They stare at me, as if calculating how credible my tale is.

I'm not sure if I should have told them all that. I barely even know them. But I doubt I would've been alive and free if not for these three.

To be honest, I just needed to get it off my chest. I've been going through it alone for a long time, and it feels good to finally have someone by my side.

Still, I held back some of the more important bits. The ones I don't trust them with yet.

"I think it's your turn to tell your story," I say. They owe it to me.

"There isn't really a lot to it," Adalyn shrugs. "Our parents disappeared from our house near Vlidron, and a letter left behind by our mother led us here."

"Was it the one Elvira found in your stuff? The one that sent her running?" I ask. He nods.

"What did it say?"

"Nothing we could make sense of," responds Skyla forlornly. "Just three meaningless little words: ailey lost vin."

"I just keep wondering how could mom and dad be involved with these people?" says Aerith, absentmindedly uprooting strands of grass from in front of her. "These dangerous people."

But my mind is somewhere else.

An old memory resurfaces, of me in Cold Hollow's headquarters a few years back. I'm sitting with Nate, who's a part of their comms team. He's showing me how they decrypt messages sent in by spies from all over the country.

I know what to do. I get up, pick up a twig and walk over to a patch of dirt where no plants grow. "Can you spell out the words in the message for me?" As Adalyn does so, I trace out all the letters in the sand with my stick. The three of them get up and come nearer to see.

"One other thing that I picked up in Cold Hollow was their way of decoding messages," I say while working with the alphabets. I feel a small smile creep up on my face. "They use one of the most basic methods of encryption, but that's the brilliance of it. No one assumes an organisation as big as theirs would use something so simple to communicate."

"Well, what is it?" asks Adalyn curiously.

"Anagrams."

After I've explained to them what anagrams are, they help me solve the puzzle at hand.

"The number of words in the decoded message will be the same as that in the coded message," I tell them. "But letters of one decoded word might be found in different coded words."

It takes us a while, but we're able to decipher it eventually.

When we stumble upon a particular meaningful phrase, I have to rub my eyes to make sure I'm seeing what I'm seeing.

I hear Aerith suck in a breath and Adalyn drop his stick. I look up to see three astonished faces that probably mirror my own. I look down again at the three words sketched into the mud.

'Lyton is alive'.