Jace crawled out from under the bed, pushing aside the prone form of the sailor who’d collapsed alongside it. He got to his feet and looked at the princess, who now had one leg freed.
“What did you do?” he asked. He could hear his own voice in his head, but it sounded muffled, like a sound underwater. He saw the girl’s jaw moving behind the cloth, but he couldn’t begin to catch the sounds.
He stuck a finger in his ear and began to dig out the still-soft wax. Sound returned to the world midway through her speech.
“…and get the key, you fool.”
“Right,” Jace said. The sailor had obviously fallen unconscious in the act of unlocking the shackles, but his hands were open and empty. Jace felt around on the dark floor until he located a ring with several keys on it.
“It’s the small one,” the feathered princess said. He tried the one he thought she was referring to, prompting her to say, “No, the other small one.”
When she was unshackled, she rubbed her ankles and wrists and stretched her long legs. Her feet were three-toed like a bird’s, but small and shapely and covered in tiny feathers that might have been fur. The same soft white down covered her face and her hands, which likewise had three fingers, along with a thumb
“The governor’s men insisted the crew stay below until the exchange,” she explained. “Somebody may be watching the ship.”
“They won’t be able to miss you, with the moonlight,” Jace said. “We’ll have to disguise you.”
“How?”
Jace knelt down by the sailor once more and began tugging off his shirt.
“Do not even think it,” the princess said.
“Do you have a better idea?” Jace asked.
She said nothing. He handed her the leather tri-corner hat which had fallen from the sailor’s head and she put it on.
They got the sailor undressed and the princess into his clothes, stuffing the front with the pillow and blanket from the bed to make up the bulk.
“Keep your head low,” Jace said as they went out onto the deck. He went first. He was mindful of the many high vantage points ringing the harbor, from which they could be under observation. “Put your hand on my shoulder, as if you’re leading me. We’ll get to one of the boats and… and…”
“And then what?”
Jace stopped, causing her to stumble into him. Her hand flew up to catch the too-big hat before it fell off her head. Once more, he’d reached the end of his formulated plan.
“We’ll put ashore and hide until dawn,” he said decisively.
“And then what?” the princess asked again.
“I suppose we’ll have to head inland,” Jace said.
“We should probably not wait for sunrise,” she said. “They will search for me.”
“Hopefully, they’ll concentrate on the harbor and the ships,” Jace said. “There’s not a lot of places to run to on the island, so t would make sense that you’d try to get off of it.”
“It would,” she agreed. “So how will I?”
Jace didn’t have an answer for that.
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