Page 95 of The Beautiful Pretender

“Thank you.” Impulsively, Avelina gave her a quick hug and smiled at her.

Cook’s eyes were wide, but then she smiled.

Avelina took a long drink from the ladle in the bucket of water in the kitchen, then ran out, hurrying back to her post.

Avelina sat on the stool and ate one of the small fruit pastries. She wrapped up the rest of the food and stuck it in her bag, along with the flask of wine Odette had given her.

Footsteps immediately broke through the silence.

Trying to stand perfectly still, Avelina held her breath as the voices and footsteps passed by the doorway. Thankfully, it was the two guards and they were going up.

As soon as she could not hear them anymore, she opened the door and ran down the steps to the dungeon.

At the bottom she whispered, “Lord Thornbeck?”

There were three corridors—one straight ahead, one to the left, and one to the right. She stood in the middle and called a little louder, “Lord Thornbeck? Where are you?”

Was he injured too badly to speak? Was he unconscious? She had to get to him. “Lord Thornbeck?” She started to go straight ahead when she heard a sound.

“What are you doing here?” came his voice.

“Keep talking.” She turned to the right and started walking carefully but quickly through the narrow corridor, bad smells assaulting her nose.

“You should not be here. It is too dangerous.”

Suddenly his hands wrapped around the bars in the cell at theend. She barely glanced at the men in the other cells as she hurried forward.

Finally, she came to Lord Thornbeck’s cell. “Take these.” She shoved the priest’s robe and the sack of straw through the bars. Then she put the gourd down on the floor and took the small metal tool from her pocket. “I am here to get you out.”

Lord Thornbeck leaned into the bars. “You must get out of here now. Geitbart was threatening to throw you in here with me. You must go, Avelina.” His tone was harsh and angry.

“No.” She was frantically trying to open the lock, but it was proving quite stubborn. What if the lock mechanism was too heavy and she could not turn it with her small tool? She kept trying.

“The king is coming,” she whispered. “Odette wants you to go somewhere safe, because when Geitbart finds out, they fear he will kill you to keep you from telling the truth.”

“The king? Coming here?”

“He had been visiting the Duke of Pomerania. The letter you sent him through Lady Magdalen must have reached the king as he was on his way back to Prague.”

“Avelina, you must go. They will find you here and you will be in danger. I forbid you to be here.” He growled. “I want you to go now.”

His forceful tone made her hands start to shake. “My lord, I am sorry. I cannot leave without you.” But the lock did not want to open. She tried over and over, catching the mechanism with her hook, but each time it slipped off.

She shoved the hook in a bit to the left this time, jerking it downward, and the mechanism clicked and slid open.

“Thank You, God,” Avelina breathed, opening the door.

Just then, the voices and footsteps were coming back down the stairs.

Lord Thornbeck grabbed her shoulders and pulled her inside and closed the door, making a clanging sound.

“What was that?” one of the voices said.

Avelina scrambled to stuff the things she brought with her under the wooden bench, the only thing in the room. Lord Thornbeck pulled her up.

“Go stand in the corner,” he whispered. “And don’t move or make a sound.”

She hurried to the back corner of the cell and flattened herself against the wall, as there was no more room under the bench and nowhere else to hide.