Arkady

  Aveo’s home workshop was honestly impressive. He’d noticed the family of three’s home was larger than those around it, but he never imagined they’d added an entire workshop within. Shelves lined the walls, toys, some completed and some half-finished, tools, an assortment of wooden projects that Arkady couldn’t quite identify, and blueprints littered the room. There was a simple desk in the workshop’s center with a stool and some equipment atop it. Sharp knives for shaping, various shaped magnifying glasses on a swivel that could be adjusted quickly to see the finer details of their work, and wood shavings covered the desk.

  He hadn’t accepted Orielle’s invitation to look over some of her other ideas just to hang out with her some more, though that was a pleasant bonus. He’d come for one of the things littered around the room. The blueprints. Her father had made it clear he planned everything, and that would almost certainly apply to the most complicated project of his life. That didn’t necessarily mean he’d keep a copy at home, but it didn’t hurt to check. Right?

  He noticed a box stuffed full of them under the desk. It was the first place he wanted to look, and just about the last one he could start if he wanted to avoid attracting suspicion. Instead, he focused on the plans Orielle had drafted. She’d had an idea similar to the toy Obie had that shot water out of its mouth and wanted to see if Arkady noticed anything she could improve on. His hex wouldn’t work in this case. He’d need to look at a physical copy of it, not a depiction, to identify weaknesses with his power, but he could still offer some insight. Arkady leaned over the desk, slowly trying to reach the box with a foot without drawing attention. He wasn’t sure what his plan was exactly, but having a physical connection to his goal might make him feel better.

  “Squeak.”

  Orielle looked up. “Did you hear that?” she asked.

  They were both standing, but Arkady turned to look at the stool behind him. He pushed it and it screeched against the floor. “I think I kicked it. Sorry,” he said. But he hadn’t come anywhere near the stool. He suspected he knew what had actually made the noise. He discreetly leaned back and looked down at the box.

  Mousifer was rummaging through it all on his own. Of course. Charlie rarely went anywhere without the mouse, but how the heck had he caught on to the same lead Arkady had? He knew the kid was smart, but he’d been pretty proud of fishing this information out of Aveo. He half-watched Orielle pointing out aspects of the design she was particularly proud of, and half-watched the blueprints as Mousifer pawed through them, looking up for approval every once in a while. Mousifer turned to the page as Orielle pulled out another design.

  “We could also go with this one,” she said, looking back up to Arkady to see his reaction.

  He leaned forward and inspected it and stuck his foot out underneath the desk at the same time. “Yeah, this is definitely the one.”

  “Really?” she asked. “You like it that much?” She said with a smile.

  Mousifer tugged the blueprint from the box, and Arkady turned the whole of his attention to Orielle. He really did like the design. “I do. Let’s go over it some more.”

  He stopped when he heard a noise behind them. They both turned to look as Tomlin emerged through a tiny door in the back of the workshop.

  “Uh…” Arkady said, at a loss for words.

  “Remember when you asked if he’d used the back door, and I said something like that?” Orielle asked. “My father always includes something like this in his designs. It’s an old practice from when the family still worked on castle walls. A way to ensure they had an escape route if something went wrong. He doesn’t always include one, but he’s fond of the idea.”

  Tomlin ran up to them. “You know what I’m fond of?” he asked.

  Orielle waited for Tomlin to finish.

  Arkady asked. “What might that be?”

  “This.” Tomlin kicked Arkady right in the shin and ran away.

  Charlie

  It was late by the time they returned to their base of operations, the house that the hex knights had assigned to them. Arkady had spent a long time in Aveo’s workshop with Orielle looking at designs, and Charlie had been getting to know Obie’s other good friend, Tomlin. The three of them had gotten along quite well, and Charlie looked forward to another play session soon. Though he knew his time with the two boys would come to an end soon. He looked up from his spot atop the kitchen table just as Arkady finished giving Merlin and Vetica the run down of dinner.

  “…and Mousifer found the blueprint! I couldn’t believe it. He even managed to roll it up. All I had to do was pretend I dropped something and slip it up my sleeve.” Arkady turned to look at Charlie. “How did you figure that out, by the way? We never had time to swap information.”

  Charlie fell back and sat on his rear so he could cross his arm. “Obie already told me that Aveo had lots of cool drawings of his designs. Tomlin and him play in his workshop all the time. I would’ve told you, but everyone was so concerned with me being friends with Obie that I didn’t feel like it.”

  Orb, who had been left out of the dinner plans, was also feeling a little sassy. “That’s right! Not to mention, none of you have ever even seen a spy movie. Charlie and I are more than capable of collecting information. We only told Obie what we needed to, nothing more, and we kept our stories grounded.”

  Merlin scoffed. “Obie thinks he can talk to babies now. He also thinks Charlie has a possessed toy ball. You call that grounded?” he asked. He softened shortly after, though. “I do admit, though, Charlie has proven time and time again that he can handle himself. It’s just…it is a little nerve-wracking watching him reveal any part of himself to a hex knight. They’ve given him, and us, nothing but trouble in the past.”

  Charlie understood where Merlin was coming from, where all of his friends were coming from, but this was no different from when they were fighting. “Friends have to trust each other. I’ve got this! I didn’t start talking to Obie immediately, me and Orb made sure we were certain before we became his friends.”

  Vetica smiled and walked around the table to sit next to him. “You’re right, and not only did you get the blueprint, but now we’ll be able to get some information out of Obie. Speaking of, you said you had some things to show us, Arkady?”

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  Everyone turned their attention to the red-haired man as he laid out the blueprint on the kitchen table. The blueprint was elaborate and finely drawn, it almost doubled as a map. Aveo had even drawn the treelines of the forest on it. “Mhm. I spent some time looking over this, and a few places got my attention.” He pointed his finger at the gate and followed it in a circle. He circled three spots on the map with his finger to draw attention to them. “Here, here, and here,” he said. One spot was among the houses; the other was on the opposite side of the fortress, near a lot of the shops that were running in the fort. The third and final spot was along the wall completely opposite of the front gate. “These are the areas I think are most likely to contain an entrance to the prison. However, I think we can eliminate the area near the residential zone. For the same reason, I doubt the shop area spot contains the entrance either. Both areas are way too accessible to civilians,” Arkady said.

  Orb floated over to the third spot. The soft blue glow of his core illuminated the area. “So…this is your guess? You think the entrance is here?” the dungeon core asked.

  Arkady nodded. “I do. If what Aveo said is true, and there is a prison running underneath fort Stonehaven, I think this is where the entrance lies.”

  Merlin nodded. “Well, all that’s left to do is investigate it, right?”

  Arkady nodded. “That’s right, and I think we should do it tonight.”

  Vetica raised a brow.

  “Tonight?” Merlin shook his head. “Isn’t that a little soon? We’ve only just got this lead,” he said with a frown.

  Charlie shook his head. “No, Arkady’s right. The hex storm will be here in two days. We need to find Mary soon.”

  Merlin and Vetica slowly nodded their consent. It was settled then.

  Charlie sat in the baby carrier attached to Merlin’s chest as they made their way through the fort in the dark. Vetica ran atop the fort’s walls, covering them. Charlie lost sight of her often, as they made their way past half-finished houses and buildings that ended up being unnecessary since they’d already housed everyone with room to spare. Arkady followed them in the dark, watching their rear. There were a few occasions where they spotted knight patrols up ahead. Vetica would crouch on the wall, or slip off of it into the darkness if the patrol was along the fort’s walls. Merlin, Charlie, and Arkady hid within the bones of unfinished buildings until the threat passed them. They were making good time.

  Now, they just had to hope Arkady’s hunch had been correct.

  “Look,” Merlin whispered, pointing ahead, and Orb rolled out of Charlie’s onesie to peek. He hadn’t been allowed to fly since he had a tendency to glow when he wasn’t supposed to, and that would quickly attract all the wrong kinds of attention.

  Charlie followed Merlin’s finger and saw two guards standing on either side of a stone compartment. These compartments were along the walls all over the fort, and Thespin had said they were mostly armories, barracks, or storage compartments. Rarely were they guarded, and one so far from any areas where civilians would move frequently, late at night, was particularly suspicious.

  Merlin ducked behind the beam of a house and stared at the guards. “Now, we just need a way to get past them.”

  Arkady caught up to them, hiding behind an adjacent beam. Vetica jumped down and joined them, after quickly surveying the wall up ahead.

  “What do we got?” Arkady asked.

  “Just two guards, we can take em no problem!” Orb said.

  Vetica rolled her eyes. “We can. But clearly you weren’t playing attention earlier. If we knock them out, they’ll know there are intruders to worry about.”

  “Then we just get Mary and get out of here!” Orb said.

  Merlin had made a similar point earlier, so Charlie already knew what Arkady would say. “We can’t. Getting to Mary is one thing, but getting her out with the knights at full strength would be nearly impossible. We stick to the plan, get in touch with Mary, come back for her during the storm, and then we leave. We can’t afford to take unnecessary risk.”

  “We could—” Merlin started, naturally his mind had already started working on a plan. The man was a con artist through and through.

  A new, yet familiar voice spoke up. “We could what? What are we doing?” Obie asked, peering from behind a pillar behind them.

  Vetica’s hands shot to her dagger, as did Arkady. Merlin’s eyes looked ready to bulge out of his chest. As Merlin turned and brought Obie into view. Charlie gave him a little wave. “Obie! You came!” he said with a grin.

  His adult companions all turned to look at him at once. They’d doubted his decision to trust Obie. They thought Charlie hadn’t been thinking, but they also forgot he was a good judge of character. Obie was his friend.

  “Of course I did! You said you needed my help. So what’s the plan?” he said.

  Orb took over. He floated dimly into the air and shot over to Obie. “Well, you see those two guards? We need to get past them.”

  Obie blinked, tilting his head slightly. “How come?”

  “We’re playing a game called ‘get past the guards and do some exploring!’ But we didn’t have enough people. We needed one person to distract the guards so we could get in and out without getting in trouble, and the game is a secret, so if the guards find out, we all lose,” Orb explained. The two of them, dungeon core and baby, had devised the plan earlier. Luckily for them, Obie loved games.

  The kid with the body of an old man straightened up. He suddenly looked very serious. “I understand. Leave it to me.” If he hadn’t still been wearing the pajamas from his sleepover with Tomlin, he might’ve looked pretty cool indeed.

  Obie stepped out from behind the houses, cracked his neck and then…slowly started skipping towards the guards with a grin on his face.

  The guards straightened up before realizing who it was. “Who goes there? Oh, Obie, what are you doing out this late?” one of them asked.

  Obie skipped to a stop and offered a shrug. “Bored. Wanna play a game with me?” he asked.

  The guard who hadn’t spoken earlier looked unsure. “We’re on duty tonight, Obie.”

  The other one sighed. “You know the captain, Thespin, will give us worse assignments if he finds out we didn’t play a quick game.”

  A moment later, Obie had gotten the guards to move a little way away from the door, and was furiously drawing symbols into the dirt. Charlie had a feeling he knew which game this was. Obie had said he wanted to show it to Charlie. Obie called it, “expert level ultimate professional tic-tac-toe.” It was the same game essentially, but with a lot more squares. Also, you needed to get at least eight in a row, Obie always went first, and you weren’t allowed to block Obie’s moves. Obie was very proud of the fact he’d never lost a single game.

  Despite being the first one to explain why they couldn’t fight, Vetica sighed. Reluctantly, she pulled her hands away from her dagger.

  Merlin rubbed his face with both hands. “Well, that’s one way to deal with the guards. Still, I wished I knew you’d invited Obie along. That nearly gave me a heart attack.”

  Arkady still seemed confused on how he hadn’t spotted Obie sooner.

  They snuck around the houses until they were sufficiently out of sight of the guards, and then they hurried quietly to the entrance.

  Charlie looked over at Obie one last time. The old-young man wasn’t looking at him, but he was wearing a devious grin on his face. Obie loved when a game went his way.

  “Thanks Obie,” Charlie said in the boy’s head as they Merlin followed the others down a staircase that was hidden behind the stone entrance.

  Now they were one step closer to Mary, and moving a lot deeper underneath the fort than Charlie expected.

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