He was almost there. Friedrich continued gripping the wall with his sticky feet and then slipped underneath the doorway. He launched himself inside, knowing he was about to lose his footing while upside-down. He landed with a soft crump and quickly looked behind him to where the guards remained staring into the distance.

  Wasting no more time, he scurried behind an old urn and looked around the entrance chamber. All was quiet, much to his delight, but there was now the matter of finding Teleri. She could have hidden anywhere, even inside the urn…she wouldn’t have, would she?

  Friedrich crawled up its side and looked inside, only to find it empty. No, of course she wouldn’t have hidden there. It was much too close to the guards. He looked into the round chamber which contained a staircase upwards and two large archways leading to corridors that followed the disk-like segment of the tower around to the left and to the right.

  Something moving caught his eyes. He looked upwards to the back corner of the chamber and saw Teleri pushing herself into the dark corner with her hands and using a small ledge of no more than an inch-wide to balance herself. Even with her light weight, slender frame, and impressive strength, that was a feat that left him with great admiration for her. She beckoned him forward with a jerk of her head and he ran along the floor, checking to the left and right to ensure there was nothing else present.

  As Friedrich ascended the wall, Teleri signalled to him that she heard something. He scurried onto the ledge and clung to it tightly as a guard walked through the archway underneath. Teleri held her breath, not daring to move a muscle while Friedrich prayed that he still had enough time left in his spider form until the guard passed on by.

  Each clanking footstep the guard took felt much slower than it was. The armoured demon paused and looked out the front door, standing still with his arms rigid by his sides. Friedrich prayed the demon would move along, but he was not budging.

  Teleri tapped him on the back. “Go,” she mouthed to him, knowing what was going through his head. Not needing to be told twice, he climbed along the wall and silently hopped to the ground when he was close enough. He then moved through the archway the guard had come from and almost immediately transformed back into a human with the mask falling from his face.

  He tucked it underneath his scarf and took fox form. He slinked into the room and hopped into one of the urns. If Teleri was caught in her hiding spot, he had to be there to help. While the demons here appeared to be run-of-the-mill guards, that did not mean there were not more powerful ones lurking further in the Orion Tower. How quickly they could be summoned was another story and he knew he would find out eventually, but it had to be when his father was already by his side.

  There came a chattering from outside and shortly afterwards, a pair of orcish men flanked by demons marched into the chamber. Teleri watched as the demon standing at attention bowed a head in greeting while Friedrich listened in.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” said the demon in his gruff and echoing voice. He was being atypically polite for a demon.

  “Evening,” said one of the men with a lecherous grin and baring his yellow tusks. “Will we be waiting long?”

  “The prisoner is being freed as we speak,” replied the demon. “You will have one hour before she is returned to stasis.”

  The other orc sniggered and licked his lips. “That’s all the time we need,” he said.

  “This way,” said the demon, gesturing up the staircase and then leading the orcs away.

  Friedrich and Teleri were horrified by the brief exchange and did not know what to do. As much as they wanted to intervene, they knew that it would jeopardise their plan of approaching as quietly as they could. The killing was to come whenever they needed a demon out of the way or if they were backed into a corner. The nature of the Orion Tower seemed sinister from the moment Friedrich had learned of it, but to think that prisoners could be selectively freed for additional punishment only to be returned to stasis made it all the more nightmarish.

  Teleri silently lowered herself from the shadowed corner of the roof, her muscles ready to burst through her armour from the strain of holding her position for so long. She pulled Friedrich from the pot and threw him onto her shoulder before scarpering up the stairs. She listened and followed the footsteps of the guard and the two orcs. At the very least, following them towards where prisoners were held would give her and Friedrich an idea of where to start searching for Lord Gaerfyrd.

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  Following the guard and the orcs along corridors and up flights of stairs, Teleri had to continually backtrack and hide in side-chambers to avoid detection from the other demons going about their business. At one point, she retreated into another ceiling corner after stuffing Friedrich into a standing suit of armour, something he would never bring up again if he could get away with it.

  Eventually, she lost track of the guard, but the pair were now comfortably within the second tier of the tower. They had yet to see any prisoners, but now their hunt could truly begin. It was just a matter of where to start. They found an empty room with a dust-covered floor and knew they would be safe here for a short while.

  “I feel lost,” said Friedrich upon turning back into a human.

  “We can see where we are from the windows,” said Teleri. “If we find ourselves truly desperate, we will coordinate ourselves using the outside as our compass.”

  Friedrich’s face contorted into a grimace. “Those orcs…barbarians,” he muttered.

  “I do not like it either, but we are here for an explicit purpose. We cannot right every wrong of the world, no matter how much we desire it. Remember why we are here.”

  “I know,” said Friedrich with a sigh. “It’s just…a horrible position to be in. There are so many prisoners in here and I don’t know who is here because they deserve punishment and who should simply not be here at all. My father cannot be the only one, surely?”

  “Clear those thoughts from your head, Friedrich. You are only going to distract yourself needlessly.”

  Friedrich nodded. “Yes. I’ll try.”

  “How do you wish to proceed now that we’re this deeply in?”

  “How do you feel about the interrogation plan?”

  Teleri wrinkled her nose. “I hate it,” she said. “It was always my least preferred options because you cannot trust a demon’s word even if it is at the sharp end of a sword with no hope of escape.”

  “Alright, then we’ll go with the slow plan and check every room we can until we either find my father, a record of the prisoners, or anything that may help us locate him.”

  “If we start now, we may make it back to the ship in time before Marina and Pheston depart.”

  “They aren’t going to do that,” said Friedrich with a quiet laugh.

  “Pheston said he would.”

  “It was sarcasm, Teleri. How can you still struggle to pick up on that, especially with him?”

  Teleri thumped him on the arm. “I am in one of the most dangerous places in the land with you and you are going to give me grief about my comprehension of human tones?”

  “That was unfair. I’m sorry.”

  “You are right it was unfair. I try very—”

  Teleri’s ears started twitching and she listened carefully. Friedrich held his breath, not wanting to make even the faintest sound that would distract her.

  “It was a voice, but it was not a demon,” she said. “It’s coming this way.”

  “The orcs couldn’t be finished with their…business already, could they? It hasn’t been twenty minutes since we lost them.”

  “No, I suspect it is not an orc either. It sounded like a human male.”

  Friedrich grinned and retrieved the spider mask. Its gem was swirling with its blue aura again, ready to transform the Mercian into the young spider’s form. “We may not be able to trust the word of an apprehended demon,” he said, “but if we aren’t dealing with a demon.”

  “I do not like this,” said Teleri, closing her eyes. “Alright, we will do it your way.”

  “Be prepared to grab him and pull him into this ring when I silence him, alright? If you can restrain him for long enough, I’ll bind him.”

  Friedrich put the mask on his face and transformed, while Teleri opened the door for him. She left it ajar so she could react when it was time to play her part.

  The spider clung to a wall sconce, curling several legs up to hide behind it. He watched, waited until the sound of footsteps grew louder, and then readied himself to shoot web. Even holding it in wait was an uncomfortable feeling, but it was a small price to pay if this plan worked.

  A guard opened a door into the corridor and walked along, unaware that he had ten eyes upon him. He wore armour that matched that of the demons, signalling that he was a guard, but he was certainly a human. Teleri’s ears told no lies. Once the guard was in line with the sconce, he hopped onto the wall with his rear raised.

  “Huh?” muttered the guard, turning to look at the foot-long spider, only to see a jet of web erupt from its spinneret.

  The sticky web landed on his face, sealing his mouth and nose shut as the guard flailed in panic. Teleri seized her moment and lunged from the shadow of the doorway, grabbing the guard and dragging him inside the small room. Friedrich leapt inside and the Alaurian closed the door, trapping the guard in with the pair of them.

  As the guard struggled, Teleri pressed her cold knife on the guard’s neck and he froze in terror. He tried to mumble something, but the web prevented him from doing so.

  “A low voice is the only thing that will keep you alive,” Teleri said to him. “Do you understand?”

  He nodded furiously, the fear in his eyes palpable. Teleri drew her knife along the web and he gasped for air. “T-t-thank you,” he said, obediently speaking with as soft a voice as he could muster.

  Teleri’s knife returned to his neck and she stared at him with uncaring eyes. It was clear to the guard that she would not hesitate to kill him, but he did not understand who she was or why a spider had helped her apprehend him.

  “Wh-wh-what are you d-d-doing?” he mumbled, trembling from head to toe.

  “We are in need of your assistance,” said Teleri coldly. “It is in your best interest to talk.”

  The guard gulped.