Silence dropped between the three of them as the voice faded. Erin stood a little away, but she had still heard it all. Never in all her time on Erth had she expected to see so many different things in one day. Even when she first came from her old world, it had been on an island with a small town. However, here on Glory Plateau, in a few hours, she met the outlaw who burned down August, found out about artificially created curses, and discovered Doctor Ozymandias had been responsible for it.


    She needed to go back and tell Leneski. Even if her original target wasn''t in the maze, this information alone was worth the trip to the Fringes. However, she still had one problem. She was still stuck in the maze.


    "Who was that?" Sayed yelled at Alex, pushing himself up from the ground and toward Alex. "Do you know him?"


    "Lucien." Alex sighed, propping himself up on one arm. "Yeah. I definitely know him."


    "Why is he doing this to Jack?" Sayed demanded, tears streaming down his eyes. "He is just a boy."


    "He won''t kill him," Alex said. "That''s not what he does. All Lucien wants out of life is a good fight, and he has a bone to pick with me."


    "And why''s that?" Erin asked, carrying the torch back and taking a seat two meters away from both of them. "What did you do?"


    "Hah." Alex wheezed out a laugh. "That''s a story. Do you both know what an Apostle is?"


    Sayed shook his head as he pushed himself back against the wall. Erin frowned. She knew what an Apostle was and didn''t like where this was going. Alex pushed himself up to a sitting position as he looked between them.


    "A servant of the Scions," Erin said. "Whether as bodyguards or as hands in the world, Apostles serve the Scions."


    "Correct," Alex said, raising one hand like he was ringing a bell.


    Erin thought through all the intelligence they had on the Scions. They were monstrously strong, of course. One Apostle acted like an entire army for each of the Scions. Any time they operated outside the Empyrean, it was usually in the Twelve Kingdoms, with the Military Police.


    "You said his name was Lucien?" Erin asked.


    "Yeah, Lucien Griffin."


    "The Butcher," her breath caught in her chest. "You''re saying that was Lucien ''the Butcher'' Griffin."


    "Wait..." Alex whispered, and his eyes went wide.


    "What does this mean?" Sayed waved his hand between them. "Why is that important?"


    "He isn''t an Apostle anymore," Erin said. "He disappeared five years ago, and a bounty was placed on his head by the Military Police. They gave him the name. ''The Butcher.''"


    "Great, like he needed a nickname," Alex said, a smirk cracking through his shocked face. "He was the one assigned to watch over the lab at August. The last time I saw him, I left him in a room with a nightshade and ran. I kind of hoped that the nightshade took him down, but here we are."


    "A nightshade," Erin whispered, her jaw dropping.


    Not only had Alex burned down an island, but he had also met and been experimented on by Dr. Ozymandias, met and survived Lucien ''the Butcher'' Griffin, and now run into a nightshade, a monster from the mist that hadn''t been seen on Erth in centuries.


    "Who are you?"


    "An outlaw," Alex said. "Simple as that."


    "No," Erin snapped. "You don''t get to say ''Simple as that.''"


    Erin needed to get back, now more than ever. If she were stronger, she would drag Alex back with her, too. He could have information that would aid the Revolution if everything he said was true. He was almost like a gift-wrapped bundle of secrets. The device in his chest alone would be worth millions of dolers to the right people, but more importantly, it would be invaluable to overthrow the Scions. The ability to give curses to anyone you wanted would tip the scales of power in the world.


    "So," Alex said, nodding to Sayed and ignoring her. "With that said, we can assume Jack''s safe for now. Lucien wouldn''t intentionally go after someone who was significantly weaker than him. He just wants to try and make sure I don''t run during the next fight."


    "You were thinking about escaping?" Erin pulled out of the storm of anger and raised an eyebrow. "How?"


    "I already had a decent idea." Alex shrugged. "The arena at the start just messed with it. It was built to fold space onto itself, so I couldn''t get to the edge. Once it shrunk down, I could sense the walls and the outside. With the right distraction and moving fast, we could get out."


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    "What do you mean?"


    "Okay." Alex sighed, looking between the both of them. "I''m going to put all my cards on the table. Well, almost all of my cards. I don''t think you''ll be able to trust me if I don''t, and I don''t think I can do this alone. Lucien wasn''t someone I could take on back on August, and I don''t think he''s someone we can take down now. I''ll tell you both everything I think is relevant, and you can decide if you want to try my plan."


    Erin remembered when he had run up to her in the fight. He had been out of breath and barely standing, but he had demanded that she trust him. That was, of course, after he had demanded to know about her powers.


    She hadn''t known him for very long, but each time he faced a problem, Alex seemed to set out to solve the problem immediately. When the sound had occurred in the maze, he had tried something immediately instead of just going the safe route. When they had fought Maki, he had spent the entire time gathering information and testing it against the monster. She didn''t doubt that he was doing the same with escaping the arena.


    "Fine," Erin said, nodding. "Tell us your plan."


    Click.


    A light shone down between the three of them, and a massive silvered plate full of food appeared out of the light. It was different from the rations doled out the day before. Fruits, vegetables, and meat adorned the plate. Just as it appeared, the light vanished.


    "Looks like our delivery has arrived," Alex whispered.


    "Should we trust it?" Sayed licked his lips.


    "He wouldn''t poison it." Alex nodded, reaching out and grabbing an orange. "Not his style. Dig in, and I''ll tell you what I know."


    Sayed grunted but also reached out to grab a piece of cooked meat. Erin shuffled forward without getting out before picking out a few fruits. She wasn''t as badly hurt as Sayed or Alex, but her use of her gate had left her drained. A fraying feeling rested at the edge of her body, but it was still there in the background.


    As the two men ate, she could already see the effects of the food. Sayed began to be able to move, and his bruises were receding to small dark spots. Alex began to move more and more as he spoke, and even she felt like she was being stitched back together again inside. There was still a lack of aether in the air, but she wasn''t dead tired anymore.


    Out in the wider world, aether made everything stronger, more hardy, and resilient. It was in the air people breathed, the food they ate, the water they drank, and even woven into the fibers of their clothes. It was a subtle thing, but even to people who weren''t curse users, it made them stronger than they would have been without it. It also made them live longer with few diseases and sicknesses. There were exceptions, but many of the things she had been trained to treat in the Coven on Aerys weren''t problems on Erth. Not that she had any right to worry about that anymore. Despite her curse, she hadn''t been a true healer in a long time.


    "Alright," Alex said as he grabbed another fruit from the table. "Let me give you both what I know."


    He bit into the fruit before continuing, making vague movements with his hands as he swallowed. Erin wished he would get it over with, but she had to imagine that his body was feeling worse than her own with what he had done in the arena. They all needed to recover if they were going to survive the next day.


    "Lucien''s curse lets him consume things and then summon them from a mist he calls up," Alex said. "He has to beat whatever it is to consume it, but I''ve seen him call out all sorts of monsters and sometimes even people to fight. He can only call one out at a time, but they''re always strong."


    "You left him in a room with a nightshade," Erin whispered as she plucked and ate a grape.


    "Which means he can probably call out one of those," Alex said. "That''s the thing about him, though. You don''t have to worry about more than one thing to fight. You just need to keep him delayed and not get killed, and you can get away. The plan is to run, not beat a nightshade."


    "How precisely do we do that?" Erin asked.


    "What about Jack?" Sayed added.


    "There''s the harder part," Alex said. "Everything is going to depend on where he puts Jack. If he has him in the arena, we can get Jack out. If he doesn''t, we''re going to need another plan. I would place a bet that he will be in the arena, though."


    "Can''t Gulantry just teleport him or us back here if we try to get Jack?" Erin asked.


    "Two problems with that," Alex said, holding up two fingers. "First, it''s hard to hit moving targets, doubly so if there''s more than one to hit. Second, that guy who''s running this, Gulantry, he''s about to get hit hard by a backlash."


    "What is this ''backlash?''" Sayed asked in between bites.


    "Think of it like..." Alex paused as he looked at Sayed. "Overextending in a fight. When he uses the island core to make an arena like what we fought in, he is pushing really far into enemy territory. What he doesn''t know is that now he''s surrounded on all sides and is about to be killed when they collapse on it. Like that, but with the power he''s using."


    Erin understood what Alex was trying to say, but she didn''t like the analogy. Alex seemed to have chosen it to help Sayed understand it by picking a subject he understood. To her, a backlash would be more like what happened to Maki. The healing effect caused something horrible to occur in response to it being empowered. However, even that probably wasn''t what he was getting at. The People''s Revolution had limited intelligence on island cores. They knew what they were, but no one had ever been able to take hold of one.


    "I see that might not do it," Alex said. "If you had electricity in your world, I would compare it to playing around with wires until you accidentally touched a hot cable, but I don''t know if that would work. Basically, overusing the core will cause bad stuff to happen to the person using it and the island as a whole. It isn''t a matter of if. It''s a matter of when."


    "Do you think he knows?" Erin asked.


    "I don''t think he would have done what he did yesterday if he did." Alex shrugged. "I also don''t think he nor Lucien are listening to this conversation. For Lucien, it just isn''t his style. For this Gulantry guy, he seems pretty arrogant, judging by what he does. We''re beneath him in his mind."


    The weight of a cold stone settled in Erin''s stomach. She hadn''t considered that. Again, Alex showed himself to be a planner. He was taking variables into account every second. For a moment, Erin could hope that they could escape the next day.


    "Those are all the cards," Alex said, leaning forward and looking between them. "If you can trust me, let me tell you what we''ll do to break out tomorrow."