𝐈𝐧 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐃𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬 (English)

Chapter 79

Trust me.

Those were the words he'd mouthed to Yang to convince her to let Cinder and Emerald take him away, and they implied he had a plan of some kind. And he did. A very simple plan: get himself into Cinder's head, betray her, profit.

Of course, he had to figure a way to do it without clueing her or Emerald off and getting himself and the child-hostage killed, and he had to do a good job playing along so Cinder didn't get suspicious and refuse to let him in her head at all. Neither of those things were going to be easy.

But he'd needed to get Yang to leave him, because she couldn't have beaten Cinder and Emerald while protecting him and a hostage, all while lacking her weapons – or even shoes. Jaune had lied to save her life, because for all that Cinder had tried to spin bullshit in his ear to convince him she wasn't an enemy, she still had the fallback option of killing Yang and abducting Jaune. Letting Cinder win a bloodless victory was better than pushing her to attack them.

Jaune's vision swam erratically as they made their way back to wherever her hiding place was. Emerald kept him under a constant illusion so that he couldn't remember it. About the best he could tell was that they were in a basement or substructure, because he'd been made to carefully pick his way down a long staircase. That didn't narrow anything down. Though Vale's walls kept it safe from Grimm, they hadn't always existed, and so almost every building in the city – and in villages and towns across Remnant – had fortified basements to act as shelters.

A door closed behind him and a lock slid across. It sounded heavy and metallic, not just the deadbolt itself, but the door as well. The air was cold and oddly dry. Emerald's illusion faded from his eyes like a blindfold being taken off, changing his view from what had been Beacon's cafeteria into an expansive underground storage facility of some kind. There were empty racks aligned against the walls and metal kegs used for transporting liquids stacked at a nearby wall. Those shone silver, not quite as dusty as he would have expected if this place were truly abandoned.

Cinder has allies, he realised. It was the only answer. Someone was looking after her and letting her stay in this place.

Jaune's eyes quickly flicked to Emerald to see if the boy was okay – or if he existed at all. He was still there, frightened and blindfolded in a more mundane manner, with a strip of cloth over his eyes. Emerald had a grip on his collar but she'd at least put her weapon away.

"As promised," Cinder said, noticing his attention. "The child is safe. Emerald, see him fed and kept warm. Give him whatever he wants, within reason."

"I want to go home," the boy whispered.

"Within reason," Cinder repeated, and took Jaune by the elbow. "You shall come with me."

He was pulled into a nearby room where some cots had been set up on either side of a portable heater. There were clothes and dust canisters scattered about, showing they'd been living here, but no empty food cartons. It was unlikely either of them felt safe enough to eat out, or take the trash out, so he could again only assume that someone was feeding them and taking the plates away after.

"You'll be sleeping there," she said, pointing to one bed. "Emerald's. Of course, she'll be awake to make sure you don't try anything untoward."

"Are we still in Vale? Surrounding me with thousands of sleeping people won't make this easy."

"That is why we'll not be taking to our beds until tomorrow morning, once the city is awake." Cinder sidestepped his question on where abouts in the city they were. "I'm aware of your... limitations. You still can't choose what dreams you end up in."

"That's right. The only successful times we've had before is when Qrow took me far out into the Emerald Forest and we were the only sleeping people for miles around." And even that had failed because they hadn't been alone as they assumed, and he'd ended up with Adam Taurus. "I thought you'd be camping out of Vale with the White Fang," he lied. "Whatever happened to your alliance with them?"