The Margrave by Catherine Fisher Page B

yelled.
    Raffi couldn’t move. A point of danger churned in him; he couldn’t tell what it was, but he was sweating and gray.
    He put his foot down, on the central slab.
     
     
    “LEAVE THIS TO ME,” Carys muttered. Without hesitation she ran down and flung her arms around the boy before he could move, pinning him so tight, he dropped the keys with a squawk. “It’s . . . it’s all right,” he spluttered. “I said I’d save you. I’m here.”
    In his ear she whispered, “Shut up. Give this to the keeper.” Paper was shoved into his pocket.
    He stared over her shoulder, appalled. “Isn’t that the castellan?”
    Carys jumped back. “Where?”
    “There!” He turned.
    Instantly she hit him hard, in the stomach, and again, in the back of the neck. He collapsed like a sack, splayed in the straw.
    “Sorry,” she whispered.
    Quist leaped over him. “Who was that?”
    “Just a prisoner. Lead on.”
    Scala had her own keys. They unlocked a tiny postern door near the guard room and beyond it was an icy stone tunnel with a wooden gate at the end. Bursting through that, they found the horses, three already saddled.
    Scala gave Quist a haughty look. “That sure I’d come!”
    “Always.”
    Carys had climbed onto the best horse. She realized now they were down in the dry moat; high overhead, the keep’s defenses roared and smoked; the fiery moon Pyra burned above. Behind her, Quist wheeled his mount. Then a shout made her look up. On the bridge, directly above her, she saw Raffi.

    HIS FOOT CAME DOWN, the slab seemed solid . . .
    “For Flain’s sake!” Galen raged.
    Raffi barely heard him. All his instincts were crawling with horror; as his weight pressed harder, second by second, he seemed to himself to be already falling, plummeting into some great pit in his mind. Then, with a click that jarred his very heart, the trapdoor crashed open.
    Raffi! The word leaped into Carys’s throat; she choked it to silence.
    He seemed to hang a moment; then as he fell, she gasped, the Sekoi lunging vainly after him, Galen grabbing at air.
    For Raffi, the black square of darkness rose up like a great mouth; with a scream, he reached out, grabbed, slid, grabbed again, and Galen’s hands had his sleeves, but the whole of his body was swinging in the dark, a sick giddiness.
    “I can’t hold him!” Galen was yelling. His hands slipped. Something dark leaped right over Raffi’s head; then the Sekoi’s seven fingers hauled powerfully on his arms, the cloth tearing. He looked down. Under his feet, far below, Raffi saw Carys.
    Her face was white, tiny. And then she had turned away and was galloping, the horse clattering right under him, and as Galen hauled him up he lost sight of her in the smoke, and collapsed on the bridge, weak with shock, shivering. The Sekoi pulled him upright and held him. “We have to get inside!”
    Arrows were bouncing from the rails. One fell through the trapdoor; Raffi saw how it plummeted into the dark. Then they were dragging him into the keep. He wanted to shout that it didn’t matter, that she’d gone, but somehow the despair of that knowledge kept him dumb; he didn’t want to say it, because that would make it real.
    They raced down the corridor of cells; from above, wooden boards were being slammed down on the bridge; the invaders hurrying across. The cells were all empty. Galen paused in the last, glancing around. “She was here.”
    “Not anymore.” The Sekoi looked up nervously. “This castle has been captured.”
    “And so have you!” The words were fierce; the sword that came out of the shadows so sharp against the creature’s neck that it breathed in alarm. Out from behind the door stepped a bruised lanky youth, his face pocked with spots.
    “You’re my prisoners.” He grinned, his teeth black.
    “We’re looking for a girl,” Galen snapped. “A prisoner. Carys Arrin.”
    “Her!” The boy scowled. “She’s gone.”
    “Gone?”
    “With the castellan.”
    Galen said