Soren
The heavy bolt on the cellar door finally slid back with a screech. Milla appeared at the top of the ladder, her face the colour of parchment, her hands still trembling as she gripped the cellar's door.
Soren and Eira emerged from behind the grain sacks. For a long minute, no one spoke. The air in the cellar still felt tainted by the cold light from the Warden's glass.
"He's gone," Milla whispered, descending the ladder and collapsing onto a crate. "He's gone."
Soren stepped forward, the oversized sweater hanging off his shoulders. He looked at Milla, then at Eira, his expression unreadable. "You risked everything. If he had found me, you would have been taken, too. Thank you. Both of you."
Milla let out a sharp, nervous laugh. "Don't thank us yet. Kaelen isn't a man who misses details. He must suspect something. He stayed down here inspecting the cellar for way too long. He was pretending to look at the floorboard, but I could see him staring at Pip's bed and the open notebook."
Eira leaned against the stone wall. "Soren, when you and Noa went back to the Docks for Pip... are you sure no one saw you? If a Warden spotted a tall man in the maintenance pipes, Kaelen wouldn't even need a search warrant."
"We were careful," Soren insisted, glancing at Pip, who was now peeking out from under his sweater. "We used the old drainage lines. It's unlikely."
"I don't think it was the pipes."
Noa stepped out from the pantry, his face tight.
"Soren, I didn't tell you this while we were running, but I saw the shack before we went inside. The door's hinges were twisted. Someone had used a pry-bar."
Soren stiffened. "I told you, it was ransacked."
"No," Noa countered, leaning against the doorframe. "I went back two hours ago, just to check. I saw a Warden mark near the back. It was a small 'K' scratched into the wood. That's Kaelen's personal seal. He knew exactly where you lived. He was looking for Soren's purple lantern before he ever came to the bakery."
The room went cold. Eira felt a chill crawl down her spine.
Milla's eyes widened. "Wait, but why would he leave his seal there? Was he trying to let Soren know that he was onto him?"
"That doesn't matter now," Eira spoke up. "If Kaelen were at the shack, he would know you survived the river-"
"Yes, but everyone knows that," Milla looked at her with a grim expression. "The only evidence he needed was that Soren, the 'river-boy', was back in Oakhaven."
"But why?" Eira asked. "I thought the only one stuck on my father's dull eyes… was well… me."
They all sat in the dim glow of the cellar, the silence stretching between them. The realization that they were being hunted by someone who knew where Soren lived pressed in on them.
Milla stood up with a heavy sigh. "We can't do anything about this tonight. And we can't all go upstairs without being seen through the windows. I'm sure Kael is still lurking around somewhere. That snake." She reached into a small dumbwaiter she used to send supplies between floors and pulled out a small pot and four mugs.
"Hot chocolate," she said firmly, setting it on a crate. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm craving some sugar. All this stress has burned too much of my glucose."
They huddled together in the center of the cellar, sitting on burlap sacks and crates, the steam from the chocolate rising in the stuffy air.
For a few minutes, they didn't talk about Wardens, or ransacked shacks, or the violet light.
"My father used to say that chocolate was the only medicine that worked before you even swallowed it," Eira said quietly, staring into her drink.
"He was a smart man," Soren murmured.
Eira glanced at him, wide-eyed.
He saw her expression and gave a breathy laugh.
"Yeah. I used to visit him whenever I had problems, like breathing. He was one of the best healers I've met."
Eira took a small sip from her cup. "That's nice," she whispered. "I'm glad he was able to help you."
They sat in the silence of the earth, four unlikely allies huddled together. Upstairs, the bakery was silent, with the smell of yeast and sugar wafting through the air. Outside, the village of Oakhaven continued its business, unaware that beneath a simple rug in a kitchen, a light was slowly beginning to change its hue.