Nada's Escape: Fighters' lies

20.2 Oath-breaker

The girls and sponsors, humans and Huntsmen, leave Seven for the last time in a motley procession along the path to the village. I lean close beside Finley, arms brushing, hair rising at the closeness.

"So when were you going to tell me you're leaving?" I hiss, my words rousing a flash of anger within me, sizzling like a drop of water in warm oil.

"What?"

I give him several steps to collect an answer whilst I interrogate my emotions. Am I mad that he's leaving? No, I'm mad that he didn't tell me, breaching the fragile trust we've worked out.

"Did Darcell tell you that?" Finley asks under his breath. I glance behind me and notice the three musketeers have gained on us, now only a few steps away.

"Does it matter?" I whisper, struggling to maintain the distance, as small as it is, between us with our voices pitched so low.

"I can't talk. Right now. But an hour before sunset? At my place?" Finley asks haltingly.

I nod even as Fern pipes up to ask where we're going now.

"See Mildrith at the marketplace for the keys to the other bungalows," Finley tells me as I turn to answer Fern, stomach fluttering at thought of being utterly responsible for all these girls.

"We go to the marketplace." I pronounce to the musketeers, mustering fighter-confidence into my walk.

It takes a surprisingly long time to set up the musketeers and the fencers in their bungalows, around the same disused cul-de-sac as my own. Turns out the Huntsmen have dragged several new mattresses into each of the bungalows, meaning the girls can share rooms; the safest option we decide. Still there's something feeble about the lack belongings filling the cupboards and drawers. I dismiss this notion with logic: if we're going to leave all this soon, what do belongings matter?

Macie and Amy tear themselves away from Percival in the afternoon to get a tour and I drag Amy into my room to give her the low down.

"We're going to get out of here. I've seen the cars, I know where the keys are. This is going to be cake after Seven."

"Glad to hear it. And Finley?"

I bristle at her constant checking up on me. "You don't want to know. By which I mean I'll get to that last."

I tell her all about Darcell's potion that accidentally saved my life and how we'd tricked the council into thinking I was one of the chosen. She gobbles up the information with a wrinkle in her nose.

"I do not believe it," she whispers.

"And Finley is a work in progress..." I finish lamely. "Who I actually should go and meet right now. I promise I will tell you everything, but not right now. My head is going to explode with how angry I am at him right now."

"Angry?" She asks, doubting my explanation.

"Furious." I hold my fist out for her to bump. "I'll see you at the thing later, kay?"

She nods, though I see schemes churning behind her eyes.

I slip out into the cul-de-sac, noting the others babbling in another of the bungalows. I don't know exactly what time sunset is, but in the quiet, lengthening shadows I feel as though I've guessed pretty close. I stride through the streets, aware of an eeriness to the quiet. I guess everyone really has cleared out.

On approach, I take a proper, critical look at Finley's bungalow. It's red brick instead of wood; bigger, newer and better kept than ours.

Finley's smile as he opens the door looks genuine in the glance I allow myself. Alone again with him, I feel tense at the possibility of enthralment. He pours me a glass of cool water and I gulp it down greedily, standing over the table even as he takes a seat across from me.

"So?" I slam the glass down before me. Feeling his beseeching expression more than seeing it, I focus my ire on his forearms, resting long against the table, and the hands loosely clasped before them. The brown leather wristband with the Warrior Mage's symbol embossed into it.

"I didn't tell you about the mission because... well. I couldn't." Finley replies slowly and confusion colours my expression. Then I sense his eyes also resting on the wristband.

Oh, he's sworn to secrecy about his mission, even the timing.

"So the council really has you in their back pocket, don't they?" I reply and Finley's fingers flinch in response, curling against the table. A sharp seed of annoyance rests within my chest. First he'd given away my position because of his oath, now he's keeping important information from me. What else might the council force him to do?

"I... swore the oath willingly but..." His voice is faraway. Regretful, perhaps? He spreads his hands, revealing the tie on the back of the band. The catch in my arrangement with Finley. The reminder of his true allegiance when all is said and done.

The seed of annoyance bites into my chest again and I am compelled to try the knot, even though I know it's sealed with magic. I pluck on the little hard bead of knotted leather string.

"I've been trying to think of a way around it." Finley says and the knot loosens in my fingers. I snap my hands away like I've been burned. Finley breathes out a long breath and runs his thumb over the knot, unravelling the strands further.

"That's impossible," He whispers.

I barely contain a chirp of surprise. Did I just break his oath to council? Is that even possible? My hands reach back out to ascertain that its real, parting the strands of leather, fingertips brushing soft skin. My gut churns, because of the skin, the broken band, and I slide back into a chair. I swallow hard, trying to make sense of it.

"Unless that's your power..." Finley slides his hands under mine, tugging them palm up towards him.

"No," I withdraw my fingers in fists. "You're wrong." An uneasy minute teeters by, where I ball my hands under the table. Then Finley begins speaking in a soothing voice. I sense a smile hiding somewhere beneath the words.

"Let me tell you the truth now. They're sending me out on mission and it's a big one, or else I'd wriggle out of it. We leave tomorrow and I'll be away two weeks, maybe more. It depends how quickly we can track the source."

I nod, confirming the details against Amy's words. Strangely, I can't think of anything to say, so I wait in the silence until he speaks again, a thread of worry weaving itself through the words.

"Can you wait for me to get back? I promised to help you escape and I mean to," he continues.

A melancholy confusion clouds my mind for a second but I shake it out.

"I can't. I have to get out when I can. If there's the smallest fragment of a chance, I'm gone." He clutches the broken wristband tighter.

"No," he breaths to himself. Then he looks up, voice reaching out to me. "Just... be careful when you do. Don't climb a ladder built to fall apart. Don't try and single-handedly dig through a landslide. If you wait for me you won't have to. When I get back its you and me, everyone we can take in the back of a truck. I know the way and I'll get you out of here, I promise."

My heart flutters at the promises and the slight tremor to his voice.

"We'll see." I reply, non-committal, drawing out the silence. "Anything else I should know, now that the bracelet's off?"

Finley drops the band and runs his hands through his hair.

"So much... You realise what you've just done though right? You've broken my oath. This," He picks up the bracelet, "Will hold me to the council's will no longer. Imagine if you could do that for all the ex-Seveners."

"The council can never know." I cut right to the chase, though I'm absorbing his words too quickly, imagining releasing Penny and Liza and all the rest from their magical imprisonment.