The Dragon Rogues, page 2
Jonathan didn’t really know what the object was, only that retrieving it was worth far more than any other job he’d taken recently. He darted toward it and lifted it from its resting spot. It was warm, but there was something more to the crystal.
He ignored it as the sense of relief he often felt at the completion of a job washed over him. Then realized he wasn’t alone in the vault.
There was someone else here.
Jonathan turned slowly, holding on to the green crystal and moving it toward his pocket. He still had the enchantments, but they wouldn’t be of much use here.
A shadowy figure stood near the metal shelves.
How had he overlooked this person?
A facade.
Where was Grayson? There was no sign of him. If there was another sneak here, at least someone who had that same ability, then perhaps Grayson could place a facade around Jonathan, and they could use that for him to escape.
He didn’t dare move, and his heart hammered as he tried to think through his options. He had to run. He had what they’d come for, and without the sneak, he was going to have to move quickly. Get back to the street. Warn Burton. Then they could run for it.
Jonathan had a series of places he could hide once he made it out of here. Then he could find the employer, make the exchange, and be done with this job. He could be done with many jobs for a while.
The figure moved, and Jonathan tossed the small square enchantment toward them. He had no idea what it might do, but he wanted to hang on to the orb. He knew what that would do, at least.
In the small confines of the vault, the square stone made a dull sound as it landed.
Without waiting, Jonathan jumped toward the opening.
Something struck him from behind, causing him to stumble and hit his head. His ears rang and his head throbbed. He crawled forward and tried to get to his feet.
Where was Grayson?
As Jonathan neared the entrance to the vault, something else slammed into him from behind.
Blackness enveloped him.
CHAPTER ONE
Jonathan Aguelon stared at the bars of his cell. He had counted them during his first year in captivity, and he knew exactly how many there were across the upper section. There was exactly one more bar on the upper portion than there was on the lower one, even though they seemed evenly spaced and symmetrical. At some point, the bars diverged, as if whoever had crafted them had made a mistake and thought to correct it.
The iron was cool to the touch as he traced his hands along the bars, running his fingers up and down and twisting around them. There was a familiarity to these movements, especially now that he had done them for the last five years. If he was right—and he was almost always right—the door at the end of the hall would open within the next few moments and the meal trays would be brought.
“Three. Two. One.” As the clock counted down in his head, he nodded to himself when the door came open, almost as if he had controlled it.
“How did you know, Dragon?” Darius asked from nearby. “You always seem to know.”
Jonathan rarely saw him, though knew him as an older thief who had some renown before his captivity. He’d been imprisoned for two years longer than Jonathan, and it was possible that he would be released many years before Jonathan escaped.
“They’re like clockwork,” he said.
“Why do you care if they’re so regular?” Darius asked.
“Because I can use that.”
That predictability was helpful to him, especially as he considered the possibilities. Eventually, he intended to leave the prison. Whether he managed to escape or whether he was released didn’t matter to him. Not anymore.
When he had first been captured, Jonathan had figured that his sentence would be mild. He had avoided being caught for his entire career, so there was no reason for the court to come down too harshly on him. They had surprised him with their sentence, but it was better than the alternative.
At least he was still above ground.
The beatings had been bad at first. A message, he knew. Men hired by Vileforn to make him suffer for what Jonathan had nearly accomplished. That he’d failed didn’t seem to matter. Grayson had said Vileforn was brutal—and he had proven right. Those beatings had come regularly at first, but eventually he suspected Vileforn had grown bored, or had gotten over the slight.
Through it all, Jonathan tried to learn if Vileforn had done anything to anyone else he cared about. Jayna seemed safe. The Academy would protect her, especially as he knew she’d taken a different surname. The others…
He’d heard nothing from his team—and assumed they’d been captured. Were they getting the same beatings?
Then there was Carinna. What must she have thought about his disappearance? He hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye to her, even if she knew the dangers. She had her own protections, but someone like Vileforn would have assets she didn’t.
Jonathan stepped away from the bars as one of his jailors approached with a tray that held a small bowl of the stew they were served most days, along with a hunk of what was almost certainly going to be stale bread. The water would probably be warm, and for all he knew, someone had pissed in it.
He nodded to Gabe, a younger jailor who was relatively new. The man still had baby-fat cheeks that lent him a youthful appearance, and only a hint of stubble on his chin.
“You’ve got the evening shift again, Gabe?” Jonathan asked.
“I get the evening shift most of the time,” he said, setting down the tray and sliding it beneath the bars.
Jonathan remained near the center of the cell. “What does your lady think about that?”
Gabe looked up at him, and he grinned. “I don’t got none. Not yet.”
“A man like you? I find that difficult to believe.”
“Most ladies aren’t impressed by my line of work.”
“It’s not the line of work that makes a man,” Jonathan said. “It’s the choices you make. Don’t you forget that.” He nodded to Gabe, who smiled.
“You told me that before, Mr. Aguelon.”
“Have I? It’s something a mentor of mine always told me. Figured it fitting for you, too.” He remembered what everything said to Gabe or any of the other jailors over the years. He kept his conversations light and cordial, which was how it was with almost all of the jailors. “There’s a place along Hickory Street in Ishan, a tavern called the Wending Field. It’s nice and respectable. The women who frequent it don’t get caught up in such trivialities as a man’s line of work. Besides, the food isn’t too bad either.”
“I think I know that street,” Gabe said.
“You ask for Veldy Theds. You tell him I sent you. He’ll take care of you.”
“Is that where you met your girl?” Gabe asked.
Jonathan looked down. “Not there. She and I met a different way.”
On a job, he didn’t say. Carinna had been an asset first, and then much more. Like him, she’d always wanted more than life had given her and had no compunction about taking it from those much more fortunate.
“I bet that’s a story,” Gabe said.
“You’re right,” Jonathan said, forcing a smile.
Someone banged on the bars of their cell, and Gabe looked over with a disappointed look on his face before shrugging and moving on.
Only when he was gone did Jonathan pick up the tray, which was still warm. It was a far cry better than it had been when he’d first been imprisoned. Back then, he was just as likely to end up with a cold tray as he was to get no tray at all. At least these days he was served consistently.
Jonathan took a seat on the small cot along one wall and balanced the tray on his lap. He took a bite of the stew, then swept the stale bread through it. Even though the stew was warm, that warmth did little to make it any more tolerable. There was only so much that could be done to make any of this edible.
He needed to get out of here.
With a sigh, he looked around his cell, where he had spent the better part of his captivity. In the first few months of his sentence, he had shared a cell with another prisoner. It had taken time for Jonathan to convince his jailors that he would do better on his own, and once he had, he’d begun to plan for the possibility of escape. He knew it wasn’t going to be easy and had no misconceptions about that. That didn’t mean he couldn’t try, though.
When he was done with his stew and bread, he gulped the glass of water and washed it all down, making sure to hold on to the spoon. He slipped the tray back out underneath the bars and took a seat on the cot again. It wasn’t long before Gabe came through and collected his tray with the others.
When Gabe was gone, Jonathan got to his feet and moved the cot away from the wall. That had taken a few months to accomplish. The cots were bolted down, and prying his away from the wall had been a difficult feat. Once it had been freed, he’d been able to use the spoon to dig at the stone.
The process was slow going. So slow that he had barely formed much in the way of a hole. Until he had some way through, he wasn’t going to be able to escape. A part of him kept waiting for those he had worked with over the years to come and free him, though he knew better than to count on such kindness.
“What were you going on about with him?” Darius asked.
Jonathan paused his scraping. “Nothing.”
“Why were you telling him to go to that tavern?”
“I figured a boy like that could use a woman.”
Darius chuckled. “‘Boy’ is the right term. He’s barely old enough to get any hair on his face. He could rub some milk on that and let the cat shave him.”
Jonathan snickered. “He still holds the keys.”
“Is that what it’s about for you?”
“It’s about warm food and being left alone. In that regard, I think we’ve had some small measure of success.”
He turned his attention back to the small hole and worked for the rest of the night. Scraping at the stone took all of his time and most of his energy, and he still didn’t feel as if he had accomplished anything. Jonathan rested when he needed. Imprisoned the way he was, there really wasn’t much more for him to do anyway. He never left his cell. He never did anything other than sit, eat, and wait for the next visit from one of the jailors. By morning, he had pulled free only a little bit of gravel.
“What do you plan to do when you get out of here?” Torvald asked.
He was in the cell across from Darius. He didn’t speak often, though Jonathan had a sense that Torvald knew exactly what Jonathan spent his nights doing. Not that anyone would make any different claim. He suspected that most of them had their own plan to escape, whether or not they took any action to carry it out. His plan of digging his way to freedom was little more than a distraction. Jonathan didn’t really think he would be able to escape. Whenever he worked at the stone, he was able to pull small fragments free, but he barely ever managed to loosen anything.
“Depends,” he said.
“On what?”
“Mostly on how I get out of here. If they decide to take pity on me, then I can stay in the city. If not…”
Torvald laughed softly. “You aren’t going anywhere. Nobody escapes from Nearnahl.”
Jonathan rested on the cot. There was a time when he would’ve challenged the claim. Perhaps he still would. Given that he had been here for almost five years, he didn’t expect to be able to escape. Not really.
Nearnahl was an impenetrable prison, and it had a reputation—one that Jonathan had not observed himself. Thankfully. Most believed that this prison was a place of violence and degradation, but he had made it his mission to ensure that he didn’t experience such torment. It had been difficult at times, but as tolerable as prison could be.
“I don’t intend to escape,” Jonathan said. “I just intend to be released.”
“Not after what you did to Everett Vileforn.”
Vileforn had been livid that anyone had gotten into his vault—or nearly so—and Jonathan had paid the price.
“That’s all hearsay and rumors.”
“And I hearsay that you told me those rumors.”
Jonathan chuckled. “Maybe they’re true. Maybe they aren’t.”
“You don’t break into one of Everett Vileforn’s warehouses and get out.”
It was a vault, not one of his warehouses. That was why Vileforn had been upset and pushed the issue. “I didn’t get out.”
And the rest of his team…
He’d spent so many hours thinking about Grayson and what had happened to him. Where had his mentor ended up? Burton might have escaped, but he didn’t know.
“Like I said.”
Jonathan closed his eyes and rested for a few moments. At least, it seemed like that was all it was. When he came awake, he felt a strange energy in the prison cell. He lay there for a beat, gathering his thoughts and trying to come up with what time it was.
Still not mealtime.
Not only had he learned to predict the movements of the jailors, but he also had come to understand the gnawing of his stomach. When he ate immediately after they came through, Jonathan could guess with the same exactness when his stomach would start to rumble again. When it did, he knew they would be close to feeding the prisoners.
He sat up on the edge of his cot and looked around.
Something was off.
The same chatter that was usually going at this time of the day was absent. Given that there was nothing else to do, most of the prisoners spoke to each other to pass the time. They might not have gotten along under other circumstances, but here within Nearnahl, they were all colleagues of a sort.
Jonathan got to his feet and gripped the bars as he looked out. There was no movement. A single lantern flickered at the end of the hall, illuminating the dark form of the barred doors that lined the hallway. Almost all were occupied by prisoners like him.
“What’s going on?” he called.
“They took Torvald out of here,” Darius replied.
Jonathan hadn’t known who would answer his question and was surprised it was Darius. Most of the time, his neighbor slept throughout the day, much like Jonathan preferred to do.
He leaned forward and pressed his head against the cell bars, trying to see out into the darkness, but he wasn’t able to make anything out.
“Where would they have taken him?”
“Questioning,” Darius said.
Questioning? Why wouldn’t Gabe have said anything to him? Jonathan would’ve thought the young jailor would share with him some aspect of what he had known. Why hadn’t he? True, there was no obligation for Gabe to tell him anything. For that matter, Gabe could keep everything from him, and Jonathan wouldn’t be able to object to it in any way.
“Questioning” could mean many things. It could mean that additional information about what had landed him in prison had been unearthed, though typically it could mean something far different.
Jonathan stared through the bars of the cell while trying to think about the various possibilities. It had been months since anybody had been taken from their cell for questioning. The last time it had happened, there had been…
Parole.
That was another possibility.
Torvald didn’t have the same rough sentence that Jonathan did. He had the possibility of parole, and the hope of leaving this place. Which meant that perhaps he was going to be offered the chance at freedom.
Jonathan smiled at the idea. Of those he had conversed with during his time here, Torvald was one who actually amused him. Jonathan actually thought he might be able to work with him on jobs. Not that they would ever have that chance in the future. It was just that Jonathan could picture himself interacting with Torvald on the outside.
Moments stretched out into minutes and then into what seemed like hours.
Still Torvald hadn’t returned.
Jonathan began to wonder if he would.
Finally, the door opened. It was too early for food, which meant it was something else. The prison followed a certain protocol, which made everything predictable. When predictability changed, he knew to be concerned.
Gabe wasn’t the one coming down the hall. Hadn’t he said he was working the evening shift this week? He should be the one on at this point, not Terrence, who was coming toward him.
Terrence was one of the older guards, and he had been working in the prison for the better part of a decade. That length of time hardened anyone, making them almost as much a criminal as the men they oversaw. He had a lean face with a scar on one cheek from a fight he’d been in prior to Jonathan’s time in Nearnahl, and he kept his hair cut short. All of it conspired to make him look pissed.
He paused in front of Jonathan’s cell, then fished out his key ring.
“What’s going on tonight, Terrence?” Jonathan asked.
“Quiet,” he snapped.
Unlike most of the guards, Terrence could be difficult. Jonathan had done his best to try to smooth things over with him. It was easier if he had some rapport with the guards, yet Terrence didn’t want anything to do with him, or with his efforts to start a conversation.
When the door came open, Jonathan waited. He knew better than to try his luck with Terrence, who was quick with his fists and feet when prisoners argued with him. Jonathan held his arms out, waiting for the cuffs that would be slapped on him, but they never came.
“Get moving,” Terrence said.
Jonathan frowned.
Another beating?
The last had been months ago. Long enough that he’d healed—and had begun to think they would stop. And Terrence had never been involved.
Maybe there was another explanation.
Could it be his time for a parole hearing already? He didn’t anticipate he would make parole. It was far too unlikely, and his crime was enough that he doubted he would ever see a successful ruling. Still, he had been brought up before the parole board one time before. He hadn’t been expecting it, and because of that, he hadn’t prepared for a hearing.
It was much like this time. Perhaps that was the intention. They didn’t want him planning and preparing. They wanted to keep him off guard.
