Chapter 87 No turning back
ADRIAN
I don’t say a word until we’re three corridors away from Darian’s room.
Kelvin’s trailing behind me, chewing on the inside of his cheek, trying to keep up. I take a turn down a quiet hallway and slip into one of the unused storage rooms near the east wing.
It smells like old wood polish and dust and secrets. I shut the door behind us and finally let myself breathe.
“That went well,” I mutter, leaning against a pile of crates.
Kelvin drops the bag of supplies he brought for Darian onto the floor. “You think Zeus will actually keep us out?”
“Oh, he’ll keep us out,” I say. “He’s probably gloating to Father right now. Can’t wait to watch us squirm.”
Kelvin sinks down onto a crate and scrubs a hand through his curls. “We don’t have time for this.”
“No,” I agree. “We don’t.”
The silence between us hangs thick. Outside the storage room door, life goes on, footsteps echo, voices murmur, servants pass without knowing anything is wrong.
“I can’t stop thinking about what Darian said,” I say. “He’s right. Iris probably thinks he abandoned her.”
Kelvin nods. “And he won’t tell us where she is.”
“Because he’s trying to protect her,” I finish. “Which means we have to protect him.”
Kelvin looks up at me slowly. “You’re not seriously thinking…?”
“I am.”
He blinks. “Adrian. We can’t just break him out.”
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t even know how,” he argues. “He's locked in the most guarded wing in the entire estate. With wards on the walls. Guards who don’t blink. Not to mention Zeus breathing down our necks.”
I straighten, pushing off the wall and pacing the length of the room. “Then we learn how. We don’t need permission. We need a plan.”
Kelvin looks like he wants to argue, but instead he sighs and mutters, “Tell me you’re not doing this just to piss Zeus off.”
“Oh, pissing Zeus off is just a bonus,” I say with a grin. “I’m doing this because Darian’s rotting in chains for doing the right thing. And Iris is out there alone. And if we keep sitting around waiting for Father’s good graces, we’ll all end up in matching manacles.”
Kelvin exhales, slowly. Then he says, “Okay. Let’s plan a prison break.”
We move to a quieter part of the palace, a long-forgotten storage wing behind the archives. The kind of place no one visits unless they’re lost or looking to hide. Perfect for what we’re about to do.
Kelvin lays out a rough map he scribbled from memory, the palace layout, the guard rotations, the enchantment triggers, the path from Darian’s room to the nearest exit.
“We’ve got three guards on shift outside his door,” he says, pointing. “One always stays, the other two rotate out every three hours.”
“Any chance they’re bribable?”
Kelvin snorts. “With what? We’re broke.”
“I don’t know. Honor? Charm?”
“You’re not that charming.”
I shoot him a look. “Rude.”
He grins, but it fades quickly. “There’s also the enchantments. The ones on the door are linked to a glyph carved behind the hinges. I’ve seen similar ones on vaults. They’ll alert Zeus, maybe even Father, if the wards are tampered with.”
“So we don’t tamper,” I say. “We disarm.”
Kelvin arches a brow. “You got a hidden talent in ward-breaking?”
“No,” I admit. “But you’re good with glyphs. Remember when you rewired the protective seal on Adira’s mirror?”
“That was a child’s toy compared to this.”
“You’re better now,” I say. “And more desperate.”
He grumbles under his breath, but I see the flicker of determination in his eyes.
We keep going. We plan around the guard changes. We find an opening, a thirty-minute window between patrol shifts and night rotation. If we can time it right, if we can slip Darian out of his restraints and get him to the servants’ tunnels behind the infirmary…
“We’ll need a disguise,” Kelvin says.
“Cloaks. Hoods,” I reply. “Something nondescript.”
“And a decoy,” he adds. “Something to draw attention away from the hall.”
I tap my fingers on the table, thinking. “A fire alarm? Smoke spell?”
“Too much risk of collateral damage. But maybe… maybe I fake an injury. Collapse in the corridor. Force the guards to leave their post for a few minutes.”
“Won’t work alone.”
“So we find something else. Something loud.”
I look up. “What about the bell tower?”
Kelvin pauses. “What about it?”
“You can trigger the bell remotely, right? That’ll confuse everyone. For at least five minutes, there’ll be panic.”
Kelvin smiles slowly. “You really want to break every rule.”
“Don’t act surprised,” I say. “You knew who I was when we started this.”
An hour later, the plan is sketched out. Sloppy, risky, borderline treasonous, but it’s a plan. And it might just work.
Kelvin sits back, stretching. “We’ll need to move fast. Once we trip the bell, the whole palace goes on alert. We’ll have minutes before someone notices Darian’s gone.”
“We’ll make it work,” I say.
Kelvin eyes me. “You sure about this?”
“Not even a little,” I admit. “But I’d rather go down trying than sit on my hands while Zeus plays guard dog and Father plays god.”
He leans forward. “If we do this… there’s no undoing it.”
“I know.”
“You’re ready to be labeled traitors?”
“We already are,” I say. “We just haven’t been convicted yet.”
Later that night, I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, replaying the plan in my head.
The routes. The timing. The look in Darian’s eyes when he said Iris was probably worried.
I think about what it cost him to keep her safe. What it’s already cost all of us.
We were never a perfect family. Not even close. But somewhere along the way, we stopped being a family at all and started becoming pieces in someone else’s game.
Not anymore.
I get up. Pull on a cloak. Quiet steps, quiet breath.
Tomorrow, we break Darian out.
And after that, we find Iris.