A light snore came from the other side of the door, at long last. Kennan let Divana sleep for a time while the guard’s snores grew louder. Only then did he squeeze her shoulder. “’Tis time to wake.”

Moaning, she sat upright and stretched. “Is it morn already?”

“Nay. Fetch your basket.” He gripped his sgian dubh and ran it around the window’s frame. Placing his palms on the pane, he pressed with alternating force, trying to carefully dislodge it from the sill without sending the glass crashing to the ground below. The blasted thing gave a fraction but was too deep in the grooves to come out.

“What’s the matter?” Divana asked, looking over his shoulder.

“She’s stuck.”

“Do not break it.”

Kennan clenched his teeth. The window gave more up and down than it did from side to side. “I’m trying my damnedest.” He grasped the lass by the shoulder and urged her to shift to the place where he’d been standing. “I need your help. Put your palms on the pane, push it upward, and hold it there. I’ll see if I can lever it out with my sgian dubh.”

“What if it breaks?” she asked, moving her hands into place.

“Then we’ll make a racket loud enough to wake the dead.”

“Och, that’s reassuring.”

She raised the glass while Kennan slipped his knife under and drew out, but the blasted glass stuck on the right. “Is it centered?”

“Pardon?”

“Move it a hair to the left.”

As she shifted, he clenched his teeth, drawing the hilt toward his body. Finally, the glass gave way, but before Divana released her hands, the pane plummeted out the window.

“No!” Kennan shouted in a whisper as he lurched out the hole with his upper body. His heart stuck in his throat as he caught the glass with the tips of his fingers while his sgian dubh clanked on the cobblestones below.

“Good glory,” Divana exclaimed, her voice hushed but very high in pitch.

“You can say that again.” Kennan didn’t even breathe as he slowly drew the glass into the chamber and set it on the floor. Staring at each other, they stood motionless, listening until the guard’s snores pealed through the timbers. “Hand me the blanket.”

After they’d eaten their meager meal of bread and water, he had tied the four strips together, creating a makeshift rope. He swung one end over a rafter beam and tied it firm, then tossed the length out the window. “You go first. It doesn’t reach all the way, but the drop won’t be far once you’ve reached the end.”

“Are ye certain it will hold?”

He tested it himself. “If it can hold me, it’ll hold you for certain. Now haste afore someone comes along.”

“All right then.” She squared her shoulders, clapped her hands to his cheeks, and gave him a kiss on the lips. “For luck.”

Kennan’s heart decided to leap in fifty different directions as the corner of his mouth ticked up. He cleared his throat and painted on a serious expression. Good God, he mustn’t let on how much her kindly gesture affected him. “You’ll be fine and I’ll be right behind.”