She landed in a heap of muck just as the king pulled himself free from it. His sword glowed a brilliant blue.

“This is awful,” Drew said through clenched teeth. The smell of the cesspit was unbearable, and he started retching uncontrollably.

Trynne knew a word of power to help fight the feeling, so she invoked it and quickly scanned the darkness. They were in a large stone box, and the opening they’d slid down was on the ceiling just behind them. On the other side of the room was a series of deep stone steps leading upward. She hurried over to them, and when she looked up, she saw an iron-barred hatch. Moonlight and fresh air were pouring in from above. The cesspit was hot, and the sound her shoes made in the filth sickened her. Another body landed in the muck pile behind them. Trynne, who had made her way up the steps, whirled around and watched King Drew kill the attacker with a single blow of his sword.

Trynne pushed on the iron hatch, but it was locked by an iron ring fastened to a bar. “Anoichto!” she said, and the lock slid open. The hatch groaned as she pushed on it.

“Up here!” she called to Drew, straining her shoulders to lift the hatch. The king rushed up the steps and helped her push it up. The hatch rattled and clanged as it fell away. Trynne’s heart was still in her throat at the narrowness of their escape. The others were coming, or would be.

The king set down his sword and hoisted Trynne around her middle to lift her up through the hole. He handed up the crown and both blades, which she set on the edge of the opening, and then he reached up to grab her hand. She planted her foot on the side of the wall and helped pull him up as he clambered out.

The sound of another body landing in the cesspit alerted them that their time was nearly done. There was cursing and grumbling followed by the sound of someone vomiting. Trynne and Drew slammed down the hatch lid together, and then she worked feverishly to secure the lock while he claimed his weapon and crown.

There were stone walls on three sides of the hatch, the kind of rough-hewn stone that was not meant to be decorative. The edges were blunted and the pieces held together by mortar.

“By the Fountain, Trynne, what’s going on?” the king whispered to her. “Where is the Espion? Where are my knights? How was I left so vulnerable?”

After locking the hatch, she gripped the sword she’d commandeered and led the way out of the inlet. She gazed both ways, searching for movement. They were in the gardener’s paddock, where the rakes and shovels and wheelbarrows were stored. When she craned her neck, she saw the castle rising up behind them, dark and skeletal.