Half Lost (The Half Bad Trilogy #3) - Sally Green Page 0,70

from Europe. But it’s such an obvious target that it’s bound to be well guarded. We can only hope that they think the Alliance is so weak and depleted it will be unable to attack.

Problem four is the date. The meeting is usually held on the last day of April but it would be typical of Soul to change this.

Problem five is the layout of the Council building, which is a labyrinth of corridors. I’ve been there every birthday from age eight to age fourteen but I’ve only seen a fraction of the building; even from my limited experience I realize it’s vast and the corridors complex. Celia, Greatorex, and some of the other members of the Alliance do know the building, or at least parts of it, and they’ve drawn up a plan from the cells in the basement to the attic rooms. There are some areas on the top floors that they don’t know and of course they think that is where Wallend has his laboratory.

All the Alliance trainee fighters from Camps One to Seven are here now. There are more than I hoped but fewer than we need: twenty-seven. Most faces I don’t recognize. We all spend time learning the layout of the building. The plan is for me to go in first and for the other members of the Alliance to come in only if I can remove the Hunters’ invisibility and after I’ve killed or captured Soul. Greatorex keeps saying to the trainees, “You must be able to find your way if it’s dark and smoke-filled. You must know it better than any place you’ve ever been.” And that’s true for me as well.

To help us learn the layout of the building, each floor has been marked out on the ground, and key areas have been replicated with walls made of wood and canvas. These are the basement, ground floor, and top floor. The basement is where we will enter. The cut from the Tower goes in there, to make it easier to move prisoners between the cells and the Tower. The ground floor has all the main offices and meeting rooms, including Soul’s private office.

They’ve been working on the replica while I’ve been away but when I go round it some things don’t seem right to me. The stairs down to the basement should be narrower. I remember the guards had to push me ahead of them and it was really cramped.

I go into the replica of the cell that I was kept in. The walls are canvas and there’s no roof. It’s morning and the sky is blue above. I pace out the cell as I remember it. Where I was chained up, how far I could move along the wall. I walk out of the cell and go to Room 2C. This seems more like the real place; the canvas walls remind me of the white of the room. I lie down in it and remember Wallend bending over me, tattooing me. I wonder how many others he’s done that to by now.

I wander around the whole cell area. Learning the layout but wondering, too, how many people they will be holding in each cell. Just one in solitary or twenty squeezed in with no space to lie down? I remember all the stories Celia used to read me about the gulags and the punishments and interrogations, and I’m sure they’ll be making each place as bad as they can.

I sit in my old cell again, up against the wall in the corner where I sat the first night I was forced to stay indoors as my witch powers grew. I remember how sick I was, how frightened. I was sixteen, which sounds so young, but I’m only seventeen now and I realize that I was in the cell a year ago, less than a year ago. Shit, it feels like twenty years. And I’ve changed, experienced so much. Back then all I wanted was to escape and be given three gifts on my birthday; all I wanted was to live free. And here I am, and I’ve got my Gift and many more besides. I’ve got more power than I’d have thought possible and I’m risking it all. And yet I feel confident about the attack. I am invulnerable after all. I know we have a good chance. Soul and Wallend and Jessica will be there for sure. And Annalise, if she’s still alive, may be down here somewhere, in this