Chapter 10 · Untitled Chapter

"Hold still."

Ivy's knife scraped along the iron cuff at Ryan's wrist. He clenched his jaw as the blade worried at the lock.

"You're going to take my hand off before you take the chain off."

"Then stop breathing so hard."

She kept her head down. Sweat darkened the loose strands of hair stuck to her jaw, and her knuckles had gone white around the knife.

"Guards are maybe thirty feet up the shaft," she whispered. "You want to explain why you're bleeding from a wrist wound instead of a manacle?"

"I want to explain why I'm not dead. That'd be a start."

A boot scraped stone above them.

Both of them froze.

Ryan counted his pulse in his ears. One. Two. Three.

Nothing followed.

Ivy let out a slow breath and pushed the knife back into the lock seam.

"There's something else down here," Ryan said. "Deeper in. I heard it move before you started cutting at my arm."

"I heard it too."

Her eyes shifted toward the tunnel behind them, where the torchlight vanished into black.

"Doesn't sound like a guard," she added.

"Doesn't sound like an animal either."

"Then shut up and let me finish.