Leif walked down the hall, steps slow and chin parallel to the floor. Every few seconds he passed someone walking the other way or standing guard at the entrance of another corridor. He could feel his whole body thumping with the vibration in his veins, but his movements were fluid and his face blank. He knew not to run. He knew not to cower in the shadow of a corner or look for a crate to hide inside. Those things got you caught. And then—then your mother's eyebrows would scrunch up, and she would make a face that looked like lemons. Then you would have to wash the sugar off of your hands, and clean up your mess, and something else terrible would happen. You might have to do extra chores. You might not get any dessert for a whole week.
Leif was having trouble remembering the details of past punishments. He was an expert stealer of sweets. It had been a long time since he had been caught. And that's all this was, really. His friends had not been kidnapped by pirates. The rescue attempt had not failed. He was not in a stronghold filled with dangerous men who would kill him as soon as they found out he had no magic. No, he was back in his own mountains, walking down a road with no roof and looking for a pie set to cool in a window. It had to be down one of these corridors.
"Hey kid," someone said. He was leaning against the corner of an intersecting hall, hand resting on the saber in his belt. "What are you doing here?"
Before Leif could stop it, his fear bled through into his face. "I'm lost," he said, because it was true, and because fear could be his fuel. "I was supposed to get lunch for—I don't remember his name. I don't remember how to get back. They said to hurry—I don't know how to find where the food is!"
"Woah kid," the guard said, looking vaguely uncomfortable, "Don't cry."
Leif sniffed, Then he scrunched his eyes shut and pressed his palms hard into them to make them water and turn red. "Can you tell me where I am?"
"Um," the guard said, stepping out into the main hall and looking down its length. "I'm not sure where you came from—there's more than one kitchen. How long have you been walking?"
"A long way," Leif said. His vision had gone all blurry from the pressure of his hands, like he had just woken up from a nap.
"Come with me," the guard said, starting down the hall. As he turned his right side came into the light and glinted. He had a key ring fastened to his belt.
The guard led him down the hall until they ran into another armed person. Leif didn't know if she was a guard too, or if she was a normal pirate warrior heading out on some kind of mission. He hadn't really understood any of Lucas' explanations about these people.
"Hey Milly," Leif's guard said, "Do you know where this kid came from?"
Milly's eyes sharpened down on him.
"I work here," Leif explained, before she could jump to any correct conclusions, "I'm an assistant but—I don't know where anything is. There's so many people and I don't know who is in charge of me. I don't know why my parents sent me here. Do you think I'll ever see them again?"
"Don't think about that," Milly said, "Do you remember what section you were assigned to?"
"He was supposed to get lunch for someone," the first guard said.
"There isn't a kitchen nearby," Milly said, and she looked up at the other guard—up and away from Leif.
Before he could think too hard about it, Leif unlatched the keyring from the belt it was attached to and took off running the way he had come. He had a few seconds head start. By the time he heard the yell of surprise, the heavy footsteps following after, he had already rounded a corner. He ran down the short corridor he had passed before—the one the guard had hailed him from not a minute earlier. There was a thick iron door at the end of it.
Leif rotated the first key his fingers came to, holding it so it stood separate from its fellows. His momentum carried him forward and he slammed into the door, pushing the key at the lock in the same motion. For a split second it caught on the metal border, then it skidded off and slipped in. Leif turned it. The lock clicked.
"There's no way," Milly said, her voice echoing from the main hall, "He can't be that fast. He must have turned off to the side."
Leif turned the handle slowly, the way he turned a handle at night when he was thirsty, quiet so the latch would not click. Then he eased it open and pulled out the key. A thin band of light slipped into the next room. There was a stone floor, a flat wall not far away. Leif put the key ring in his pocket—and there was a napkin there already. Leif yanked it out. Cookie crumbs scattered on the floor as he shoved it into the wall—into the hole in the wall where the latch liked to sit.
At the other end of the short hall, the first guard walked into view. He stopped and looked over his shoulder, waiting for Milly to catch up.
Carefully, quietly, Leif pushed the door shut. The latch didn't click. If he was lucky, the door would open from this side later.
It was pitch black now—the only thing visible was the thin glowing outline of the door, backlit by the glowstone torches in the hall—but he could hear the footsteps. Thick and heavy like the sturdy soles of the boots they belonged to, they clomped down the main corridor, moving farther and farther away with every second. When he couldn't hear them anymore, Leif let out his breath. He didn't remember when he had started holding it.
Something cold and hard touched the back of his neck. Leif very nearly screamed, and the effort of pressing down the noise took so much of his focus that instead of jumping away he went completely still.
"There are a lot of words I want to say," Wolke said, moving his beak forward to sit behind Leif's ear, "But I don't think I should teach you most of them."
"What can I know?" Leif whispered in Elkarin. That was the language for learning.
Wolke chortled. "What. How. Why."
"I know those," Leif said.
"What again," Wolke said, "What lots of times."
"I am not learning," Leif said, and he switched back to his mother tongue. "Stop saying stupid things."
"Sure," Wolke said, "Okay. Fine. What. You have keys. How do you have keys? Why do you have keys? Why are you locking you in?"
"Those are dumb questions and I can ask a better one," Leif said. He sat down on the floor, pressed his palms into the still cold face of the well worn stones and hoped that he could somehow absorb their calmness. "If you were a pie, what kind of flavor would you be?"