[h3]~~~Aery~~~[/h3]
"Because I told them everything." the words formed on her lips but fell, barely whispered, onto the blanket she was laying on. She hadn't gotten all of what Rowan had said, but she'd vaguely seen the words "I walk...broken...why...weak...heal..." So she had extrapolated the vague meaning. And she'd prove it, both to herself and to him, that she wasn't weak.
She gritted her teeth, picked up the charcoal stick, and looked for the pad of paper. It was on the floor next to the bed. Resisting the urge to whimper Aery pushed herself off the bed, landing on the floor with a thump that sent a white-hot bolt of pain through her lungs. She gasped for several moments before she regained her senses enough to grab the piece of parchment.
"Silly and Ame were being pests today and wouldn't eat breakfast until I sat there and forced them to, so I was late to meet Celaena. I went to meet her at the docks, where she said she'd be, and I waited there, but she wasn't there. So I went to go find her in the market, and I took a shortcut through an alley. Only, it was a dead-end, and then someone came in behind me and tried to stab me. He tackled me to the ground and gave me a sedative, and then... Two people tortured me, over some sort of plot to kill the royal family of Adarlan, which I swear I know nothing about. Celaena rescued me and brought me here. I thought I was going to die.
After you'd left the room after giving me the potion, Celaena jumped out the window after promising me revenge. Silly and Ame and I went to go find her and demand she think it through. But it was too late. A guard cornered me again, a teenaged boy wearing a black mask. He snatched Ame before I could do anything about it, then the guards from this morning poisoned me and Silly. They gave Silly and Ame to the boy as a reward, and he left, and then they dragged me in, to torture me to hurt Celaena. I don't know much of what happened after that, just, little snippets."
Tears streamed down her face as she wrote it, but she wrote it out, ignoring the burning pain in her chest (whether from emotions or from the torture, she had no idea) and then she called for Rowan. "Rowan? Rowan! I'm done." But he didn't seem to hear her, or maybe that was just part of the test. So, gritting her teeth, and yet unable to stifle the low scream that was torn from her throat, she pulled herself to her feet on her broken legs. She very nearly fell; her eyes swam and her head pounded from the blood loss. But she barely managed to retain her footing, and then, agony shooting up her entire body, black spots dancing in front of her eyes, stumbled, using the wall as a support, out of the room. Leaning on the doorframe, she saw Rowan leaning casually against the wall to the left of the door. "There. Did I pass?" She meant to spit the words, but they came out in a pathetic creaking whisper.

[h3]~~~Ame and Silly~~~[/h3]
Silly looked around from under mostly-closed eyelids. They'd been traveling nonstop for ten hours, by her estimate. The boy cuffed her over the head whenever he caught her looking around, but he didn't seem very smart, in that he'd not blindfolded her even though she'd looked around probably 100 times that day. They'd been on a high-speed ship for about four hours, which had not been fun, and had had Ame puking her guts out from the get-go. Silly had taken to it alright. Now they were in the back of a very stuffy wagon.
Using the family's private sign language, Silly motioned to Ame. YOU O-K?
MUCH-SCARED came the quick reply.
IT O-K...GET-OUT SOON.
Ame didn't even bother to sign back, just shook her head "no" and started crying silently.
Silly was filled with rage from head to toe. The idiot guard hadn't taken their weapons, even, and now she had the confidence to use them. Anything to make Ame stop crying.
A-M-E LOOK-HERE. She slid one of the throwing disks out of her belt and slid it across the floor to Ame. the littler girl froze, then looked up at Silly with such fragile hope that it was almost painful. Very carefully Ame eased the long daggers out of her boots and slid them to Silly.
And Silly jumped to her feet, plunging the daggers through the teenaged boy's back. A throwing disk to sever the horses' reins, and fluidly Silly reached down, grabbed Ame, and leaped with her out of the back of the wagon.
"A'right, now where be we?" She looked around and did a double-take. Right in front of the burned-down assassin's guild in Adarlan.
"Silly!" A seven-year-old boy came trotting around the wreckage, wearing a green thread bracelet, the symbol of the City Park urchin camp, and the thin black bracelet that signified a runner. His name came to her. Axel.
"Ho, Axel! How ye be?"
"I'm doin' swell, an' yerself?" Then he took in the spidersilk clothing that she and Ame were still wearing. Though the boy was wearing clean clothes, courtesy of the backup Assassin's Guild, his were plain cotton. "Ye be travelin' wiv' Aery?" he asked. They'd all found out that she'd bought spidersilk, somehow.
"Tha's sorta me problem, Axel. Bad man nabbed us, me 'n Ame, here, an' took us from Aery. I think she been hurt bad. She were once, an' then she wen' back to rescue her lady, an' they cornered her an' they're prob'ly torturin' her right now."
Axel took a step back, then got a look of determination on his face.
"No, Axel, they be in the Red Desert. I didna have a chance t' scape afore now."
"Well, we ken worry 'bout that in a bit. I've got news for ye; the other runners told me t' find Aery an' her family an' pass it on: One o' the older un's done got the murderer talkin'!"
It took a moment for the news to sink in. Ame got it first, actually, and her arms tightened around Silly's neck.
"We've gots to help him!" Silly hugged Ame back, and then had a moment of disorientation when Ame whimpered and Silly's arms came away covered in blood.
And then it felt like the world was falling out from under her. The monster. Had he really not wanted to wait until they'd gotten to a secure place before he'd hurt Ame?
"It's not bad." Ame whispered. "It's really not." But there was no vigor in her reply, and now that Silly looked at her, her eyes were unfocused and she was shivering and even paler than usual.
"Oh, me god, Ame, yous not okay. You needs help."
"I'll be fine for another hour or two. Go do justice on the murderer. See? I can even walk." To prove her point she let go and slipped down through Silly's arms and onto the ground. "I'll keep up, you wait and see."
And so Axel led the two girls through the back alleys until they came through to the alley in which Charles and Leon were, but on the other side, so that Charles was effectively trapped. Silly dared to glance down at Ame, and saw that the tiny girl's eyes were like fire with rage and pain again. Good, she'd need them, if it meant they could do justice on the murderer.
Silly drew her weapons, the long dagger from Aery in her right hand and one of her throwing stars in her left, and settled to wait. She could have thrown the disk at the man's neck and killed him then, but she didn't, because killing an enemy from behind, especially when he didn't know you were there, was dishonorable.