(( Open to passives who would be looking to escape from Brunnhold; if you don't have a desire to escape, you wouldn't be on the list. ))

Colt Goodluck cracked his bony knuckles and looked around the room.

Errand girls, most of them. Young, fresh-faced, scared. They didn't seem to like him, the tall, gangly human with the gryphon-emblazoned cart they'd seen a hundred times as they went about their daily chores. He closed his thick eyelids for a moment. This was one job he wasn't overly fond of, but he did love breaking the law.

"All right," he said, in a voice that was surprisingly quiet and gentle given his rough appearance. "You all got the message, then. I'm assuming the kitchen and cleaning folk can't make it out, so you lot are probably all handmaids and errand boys, right?"

Most nodded their heads. They were all dressed in blue, he noticed. Eerie. To him, they just looked like a bunch of worn-out, short-haired gollies; it was strange to feel no sense of a field around them.

The room was underground; light shafting in around the ceiling through thin boarded-up windows suggested a drop-down basement. There was no door or staircase. They'd been led in through a tunnel from the bakery, but they wouldn't know the way in on their own; it was a common resistance tactic. The note had come in last week, and the attending passives had had plenty of time to arrange to be in the Stacks that afternoon, running errands or attending cooking classes or buying supplies. But their meeting time was limited, so the thin ringleader hurried up with his speech.

"The name's Colt," he said. "And if you're here, it means you probably know that time's short. Real short. You were on the list because someone vouched for you, someone who knows you en't a squealer. Now, I hate to act all suspicious, but I do promise you this - one of you talks, you en't gonna be eating out of a silver spoon for your pains. Even if I don't kill you, someone will. And the gollies won't be likely to treat you any nicer, no matter what they promise. Chew on that, kiddos."

A boy in front, no older than twenty by the look of him, angrily blew hair out of his eyes. "We're not total lowlifes."

"That you en't," said Colt grimly. "You're all important. Because you're human - well, close enough, you are. And you don't deserve that what's happened to you. Me and my boys here in town have been listening, all the time, and what we hear en't good. You've probably heard the like - that Servalis en't long for the office. When that happens, expect a backlash the likes you en't never seen - and I say that will a full respect to its irony, mind."

"So what can we do?" piped up a middle-aged woman with permanent circles under her eyes.

Colt Goodluck grinned, because this was the part he was good at.

"You can run," he said simply.

The room rumbled with shock in the aftermath of this comment.

"My boys are working on a way out," he said, "one that bypasses all the usual...issues. And we've got somebody on the inside. Somebody good. Trustworthy. I can't tell you all who it is; you're gonna have to trust me. And secondly - exceptin' the young ones, which we'll take good care of, we en't just gonna let you run off free by yourselves once you're clear. This spring job comes with conditions."

"Do you think we're stupid, as well as lowlifes then?" It took Zoumani a moment to realize that the voice had come from her. Come from her stupid mouth that could never ever close. She could feel the stares. She tried to sink further down from her standing position, practically hunched over.

"I... I didn't mean to speak out of turn," she mumbled to her bare feet, toes wriggling and kneading the ground in anxiety. "But... I think we all realized that we wouldn't be getting a free pass from the goodness of your heart."

He looked up at the man, this Colt. "Sir, Colt, I will do anything to get out of here, anything. And please do not underestimate our conviction. I have dreamed of going back to Thul Ka since the day that I came her. It has been six years. I will," she breathed in and out. "I will do anything to return to the river."

Aurelie had been thinking a lot, these past few days. About what she wanted, and what she was willing to do to get it. Being locked in the coal shed the way she had been, that had been what set her off. That, on top of Triston, on top of well, everything had been more than enough to get her mind spinning. She didn't want this life, she couldn't live this life! She couldn't keep living at the beck and call of someone else, never free to grasp what she so dearly desired.

When Zoumani spoke up, Aurelie tried to catch her eyes and smile. That's right, they weren't thick the lot of them. Smarter than this man, she was sure, with his rough way of speaking and holding himself.

"Why," she said with a voice that was quiet but clear with conviction, "would we leave here to be at the beck and call of new masters?" You aren't even galdori. She didn't say it, but it was written clear on her features. Perhaps this Colt (what a name) had meant it as a complient, she was sure, when he'd called them almost human. But Aurelie bristled under those words-- she wasn't human and she never would be. She might not be galdori, but she sure as anything wasn't a human. Never, ever would she let herself think something like that. Beaten, downtrodden and miserable, but Aurelie still had too much pride for something like that.

Colt rolled his eyes. So dramatic, these passives. Spoiled little kids is what they were, stuck in the same condition they'd been in before having it all ripped out from under them, unable to grow up.

"Whoa, there, missy," he said to Zoumani. "No need for harsh words. I en't here to judge anyone's worth. As long as you do what's asked of you, you and all your friends will get out of that rat trap of a school. And that may not be out of the goodness of my heart, but I answer to people who got pretty good hearts of their own."



He grinned at Aurelie. "Fine by me if you stay, darlin'. I guess you don't imagine helping overturn the status quo is a worthwhile endeavor. Treating you real nice, is it, the aristocracy? Providing for all your needs? Me and my friends don't think so, see. We need your help, as able-bodied folk who can fight for what's right. But if you're not interested, you're welcome to stick it out in there."

He jerked his thumb towards a wall; presumably, it was in the direction of Brunnhold proper.

"We'll come and fetch you when the real work is done, and you can enjoy your shiny new life of freedom, providing you're not cannon fodder by then."