There could be no contingency plan. She had to escape at any cost. Amaris savored the cold as her feet hit the chilly stone floor. The discomfort helped to focus her mind, any remaining cobwebs falling away as she articulated her next steps.

Fetch supplies. Wake Nox. Run.

In less than three minutes she had silently dressed and gathered the bundle of the boys’ clothes she’d stolen from the laundry. She peeked out of the doorway before committing to the sprint across the hall. The matrons who had been protectively patrolling the hall must be in the neighboring wing surveying the boys, as the older women were nowhere to be seen. Good.

Amaris carried her bundles with her as she crept across the corridor to the older girls’ dorm. She knew Nox was awake before she even reached her bed. Two large, coal-dark eyes looked up at her from where she was still tucked between the sheets.

Amaris didn’t need to say anything. The earliness of the hour and look on her face communicated enough.

Nox began wordlessly dressing into the offered tunic and pants without a moment’s hesitation. A girl in a neighboring cot rolled over in her bed, and they froze, still as statues while they waited to ensure they would not be thwarted by a peer. But no one else so much as moved as Nox gathered the sheet filled with food for the road and held her shoes in one hand, lest the soft leather soles make noise on the stones.

It had been mere minutes since Mable had awoken Amaris with tea, and they were already well on their way, ready to disappear into the chilled, early purples of dawn without a moment to spare.

The girls snuck from the dorm and crept toward the back stairs that would allow them to escape through the kitchen, when Nox paused outside of Agnes’s office.

“Why are we stopping?” Amaris asked. A tremor bled into her question. She looked over her shoulder and down the hall, staring into the shadowed gloom of the empty hall. Any second, the others would wake.

“Trust me,” Nox said as she fished in her hair for a pin. Her fingers clasped successfully around the object, and within a moment she had begun picking the lock.

Nox had told Amaris that she’d slipped behind locked doors a time or two, but Amaris had never seen the skill in action. Gratitude and urgency competed for her attention as she squirmed impatiently. Nox’s face relaxed into satisfied relief as the door yielded. She eased it open and began to search.

Amaris waited at the door. She continued to dance noiselessly at the threshold as she darted looks between Nox and the empty hall behind them.

Nox seemed to know exactly what she was looking for.