Fortunately, the Warden seemed curious enough to halt his forward movement and he turned back to her friend.
“We’re really sorry to have bothered you,” Bear said, “but you need to let us go free now. We don’t want any more trouble; we just want to go home. When you let us out of here, you’ll never have to worry about us again.”
His words were audacious, and yet Alex had to suppress a grin when the guards and even D.C. all began nodding along while listening to his hypnotic tone. It was fascinating—the last time Bear had used his gift around Alex, her own willpower hadn’t been fully activated, and the mesmerising nature of his ability had sucked her right in. But no longer did it affect her, since she was now fully in control of her own gift.
For a moment, Alex thought Bear had come up with the perfect escape plan. But then she realised there was one person, other than herself, who wasn’t nodding along with the rest.
“Nice try, kid,” Renko said, a hint of a smile curling his lips. “But you’re not the only one with a gift around here.”
As if his words broke the spell, suddenly the other guards— and D.C.—shook off the glamour of Bear’s charm and came back to their senses, frowning slightly in bewilderment.
“Now, let’s try this again,” Renko said, gesturing pointedly for Alex and her friends to follow him from the cell.
Throwing an ‘it was worth a shot’ look at Bear, Alex stepped forward and trailed Renko down a series of blindingly white corridors until they passed a guarded checkpoint and walked in single file through some kind of body scanner. It reminded Alex of stepping through airport security, and she wondered what the point of it was, since not even their ComTCDs had been confiscated from them during their imprisonment—though, they had somehow been deactivated, meaning no incoming or outgoing calls, despite their desperate attempts to contact Johnny for escape options.
Whether the body scanner was searching for weapons or something else—or perhaps it acted like an EMP field and was now reactivating their Devices, or so Alex hoped—it let them through without issue, and from there, Alex and her friends were pushed into an elevator. After an ear-popping journey upwards, it opened into a large room bustling with people smartly dressed and wandering about with purpose.
Until that moment, Alex had presumed from Renko’s words that they’d been moved to some kind of high-tech, uncommonly clean prison, but now she had no idea where they were. Not until she saw the sign posted directly above the spiral glass staircase they were being led towards. HIGH COURT OF MEDORA was written in large, bold letters, with an engraving of the Wardens’ emblem beneath it: two swords crossed together behind a crown.
There was an addition to this picture Alex hadn’t seen before, with the emblem positioned in the middle of a shield above the words: Sosaar de ne lenorsa.
“We are many, yet we are one,” D.C. recited quietly, answering Alex’s unspoken question. “It’s meant to be a reminder that our actions affect the lives of those around us every day.” Her eyes travelled over the room and she continued in a whisper, “I can’t believe we’re at the High Court. This is so not good, guys.” The guard behind her prodded his Stabiliser into her back and she snapped her mouth closed.
The moment their entourage stepped onto the spiralling staircase, Renko tapped something into the railing and it came to life, moving them upwards like an escalator. When they reached what Alex judged to be about four floors up, she was nudged off by a guard to follow the Warden down another long hallway, this one with a glass-walled view that held Alex’s attention for the entire length of the walk.
“Mardenia. The city on a hill,” Renko said, tracking her gaze as he fell into step beside her.
Feeling as if he expected a response, she squinted out at the view and said, “It’s very… clean.”
As strange as her description was, it was the only thing Alex could come up with on the fly. Looking at the city sprawled across the side of what was most definitely a hill, Alex marvelled at just how white everything was. Much like the High Court, the buildings running alongside the vibrant blue ocean were bleached of colour. The scenery brought to mind a memory of the time she’d travelled around the Greek Islands with her parents when they’d been working on a dig outside of Athens. They’d taken a four-day vacation from their work and hired a boat, cruising around the Aegean Sea and setting foot on as many islands as time allowed.
Before Alex could properly indulge in her nostalgia, they came to the end of the windowed walkway and Renko ordered them to sit in a small waiting room.
“Your trial will begin in five minutes. Wait in here until you’re called.”
Alex anxiously flicked her eyes to Renko as he and the guards exited the room. “Our trial?”
He turned to her when he reached the door, his face blank. “You illegally infiltrated a top-secret facility. Did you expect to get off with just a warning?”
And with that, he locked them in the small room.
“So what are we looking at here?” Alex asked D.C.
“My guess?” D.C. chewed nervously on her lip. “Nothing good. We were caught red-handed, Alex. As much as it’ll suck, we may have to get someone to contact my parents.”
“I can see that conversation going well.” Alex pitched her voice to mimic D.C., “Excuse me, Warden Renko, do you mind contacting the king and queen to tell them you’ve got their daughter locked up in prison? No, really, I promise you, I’m the princess.” Alex finished her recitation by looking pointedly up and down her friend’s lightning-zinged, muddy appearance. “For some reason, I have a feeling he’ll have a hard time believing us.”
“Fortunately for you, little human, you won’t have to wait to find out if that is true.”
Alex whirled around only to gape at the sight of the huge Meyarin guard, Zain, leaning casually against the wall.
“I leave you alone for a few days and you end up incarcerated,” he said, taking in their messy appearances with a mixture of exasperation and amusement. “You once told me you didn’t need a babysitter, but all evidence points to the contrary.”
“What are you doing here, Zain?” Alex asked, amazed to see him standing there with them. “How did you even get in here? No, scratch that. How did you know where to find us?” She paused. “Wait, you are here for us, right?”
“Always so curious,” Zain said, pushing off from the wall and moving with Meyarin grace towards her. “Turn around, Alex.”
He didn’t give her the option of following his command since his heavy hands came to rest on her shoulders, swivelling her body until her back faced him. She heard a snick before her bonds fell to the ground. Massaging the pins and needles from her wrists, Alex watched him liberate D.C. and Bear with a lethal-looking blade. Zain didn’t miss their winces when their injured hands were released.
“Step closer, humans, and we’ll address your wounds back in Meya.”
When Alex opened her mouth to repeat her questions, he sent her a quelling look and said, “Unless of course you want to stay here and end up with criminal records and prison time?”
She snapped her mouth shut and the three of them moved closer to Zain. Almost immediately, the ground tore out from underneath them as the Valispath activated, shooting them straight through the walls of the High Court and out into the sunset horizon.