Bree woke up in a dark, square-shaped room. She felt sore all over. Iron bars separated the room from the corridor outside, and there was only a small window, about fifteen centimeters wide, high up on the wall opposite. It was obviously a cell. Jail, huh? Isn’t that just great? And yet, the girl couldn’t for the love of her remember how she ended up there, or who had captured her. One minute she was in the forest, waiting for Evelyn to return, the next she was there. In place of memories, she had a persistent pain on the side of her head.

She got up on her feet, and walked to the cell bars to inspect the place she was in. There were about twenty cells on either side of the corridor, with a guard standing next to the staircase on each end. She could only see the cells on the opposite side of the corridor from hers. Most of them were empty, except from two, in which there were old bearded men. From the looks of it, they’ve already been there for quite a while. Bree just hoped this wouldn’t be her fate as well.

“Cat?” she called. “Eve?”

No response. That was good, right? Of course, there was no way for Bree to be sure that her friends hadn’t been captured and placed in cells elsewhere, but at least them not being there meant there was a chance they had escaped. Brianna stared at one of the guards, standing by the staircase closest to her.

“Hey, you!” she called. The guard gave no sign of having heard her, even though he must have. “You in the uniform!” Bree insisted. “Care to tell me why I’m here?!”

The guard kept on ignoring her. But another person answered. The voice came from the other side of the corridor, and made Bree jump.

“Quite a list of crimes for someone so young,” said the voice. It belonged to a burly man in fancy armor. Not one of the guards, Bree realized. Between his armor and his gait, that man looked more like a lord of some kind. He was walking down the corridor to meet her, enumerating her crimes as he went. “False personation. Burglary. Multiple instances of theft. Petty crimes, mostly, even if His Majesty did have a fancy for those horses you stole. But let’s not stop there. Abduction. Conspiracy against the Crown. Now... those two crimes are on a different league. I’d charge you with high treason, but judging by your accent, you’re probably not a citizen of our kingdom.” He stopped in front of Bree, towering over her. “Tell me, what is it about those outlaws that has managed to convince a young lady like yourself to become a terrorist?”

The accusation baffled the girl.

“I’m not a terrorist!” she argued.

“Alas, there’s no use in lying to me,” countered the man. “Where’s the princess?”

“Princess?!” exclaimed Bree. “What princess?!”

The man still seemed to think Bree was feigning innocence, and he made a point to let her know this. “The one you abducted. Where are you keeping her? And while we’re on the subject, who are your associates? I want names.”

Bree stared at him in disbelief. “I swear to God, sir, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The man seemed unsympathetic. “Not going to talk, are you? All right, then. I have time. We can negotiate.”

—

“I’ve been there,” Cat told the others. “Just once, a few years ago, and please don’t ask me for details. What matters is that I know how to get there, and if we’re lucky I might even be able to get us inside unseen. It won’t be easy, Evelyn.”

“I never thought it would be,” she replied. “But if Bree’s in there, I’ll do whatever it takes to get her out. We either go home together, or not at all.”

Cat smiled. “You’re a good sister,” she told her. Eve chuckled, awkwardly. Cat had no idea how horrible she’d acted toward Bree for the past two months. And yet, at that moment, Eve wasn’t just trying to make it up to her, nor was she worried that her mom would freak out if she came back home without Bree. She was genuinely worried about her sister. Her sister. When did she even start calling her that?

“Where is it?” Oliver asked. Eve could tell he still did not believe Cat’s claim that she’d been to Stonepit Fortress, the secret prison.

“It’s hidden in one of the valleys of Skeleton Range,” Cat answered. “On the side that faces the desert. Nasty place. The path through the mountains is treacherous, and hard to navigate. No wonder they picked it for a secret prison, I guess, since nobody in their sane mind would go to a place like that willingly. Fortunately, it’s not too far from here,” she added, for Evelyn’s benefit. “If we leave now, we could be there by sunrise. But... we’ll need horses for that. The guards took Sirius and Antares with them, when they captured Brianna. They would have captured me too, if I hadn’t been... you know...” she made a gesture with her hands, imitating cat paws. It was adorable.

“So... horses, hm?” said Oliver. He looked pensive.

Cat nodded. “Got any ideas?”

The boy opened a cheeky smile. “I think so, yes. Say, Evelyn, you stole a horse once, didn’t you?” he asked her, and Eve nodded. “Think you could do it again?”

—

Oliver had a plan.

He told the others that whenever the royal guard came to their village, they spent the night at the only inn the place had to offer, just outside of town. And that inn had a stable, where the guards’ horses were kept. One or two guards usually kept watch over the stable during the night, to discourage people from doing exactly what Cat and Eve were planning to do.

“That’s where I come in,” Oliver had told them, earlier that night. “You see, when your family trade is in botany, you grow up learning about a lot of different plants. There are herbs for curing headaches, lifting one’s spirits, warding off bugs... and also for helping people sleep. Really powerful herbs, I should say.”

Hours later, Oliver and Eve were standing near the far side of the horses’ shed, wearing improvised masks that covered their noses, and holding rags drenched in Oliver’s special concoction, prepared especially for that occasion. Cat was a cat: that too was part of the plan. There were two guards standing by the doors of the shed. Cat walked in from the other side of it, stopped in front of the two men, and started meowing loudly, and doing silly gestures with her paws.

“What’s that cat doing?” asked one of the guards.

“No idea,” said the other.

Cat got up on her hind legs, and kept on making those gestures. The two guards watched, amused. That was the moment! Oliver nudged Eve, and the two of them crept behind the guards. Eve felt a rush of adrenaline, thrilled and terrified at what they were about to do. There was no turning back, now. On Oliver’s cue, Eve wrapped the rag around one guard’s face, forcing him to inhale the scent of Oliver’s concoction, and the boy did the same to the other guard. They struggled, but only for a second, before the two men fell to the ground, completely passed out.

“Piece of cake,” Oliver whispered, smugly. He went to the stable doors, to open them.

“Cat, come on!” Eve whispered, and the black cat leaped into her arms. They rushed into the shed. There were several horses there. Eve immediately spotted Sirius and Antares in the farthest stalls. “Those two” she told Oliver, and the boy rushed over there to untie them. Eve dropped Cat on the ground, gave her the pepper vial to sniff, and quickly handed the girl her robe once she’d turned back to human.

The two girls took the horses’ reins and led Sirius and Antares outside, furtively, guiding them to a nearby grove.

“Right,” said Cat. “From here, we head south, avoiding any roads. I don’t think we have much time before those two wake up, or before someone else comes to check on them. We’ll figure stuff out on the way. Evelyn, I think you probably realized this already, but you’re going to have to ride solo, so that Bree can come with you on Antares when we head back. I know you’ve never done it before, but I’ll give you some directions on the go. You’ll be fine.”

Eve nodded. It was madness to think she could outrun experienced horsemen without even a basic knowledge of riding horses, but they were a little short on options at the moment.

Cat turned to the botanist’s grandson. “Oliver, where’s your horse?”

The boy took a step back. “I’m not going,” he said, surprising both girls.

“I thought you wanted to see your father,” Eve remarked.

Oliver pursed his lips. “Honestly?” he said. “It’s been twelve years. Dad might not even be alive anymore. And going to Stonepit... I hate to say it, but it sounds like a suicide mission. I have my grandfather to care for, he needs me here.”

There was a moment of silence. It was too dark to make out what the look on Oliver’s face was at that moment, but there was resolution in his voice, and Eve understood what that meant.

“It was an honor meeting you,” she told him.

“Likewise,” said the boy. He turned around to leave, but stopped short of taking the first step. “Jean Marco,” he said. “It’s my father’s name. His friends call him Turnip, for some reason.”

Eve smiled. “Well find him,” she told the boy, “and we’ll get him out.”