Chapter 21: Nap in the Cell

James slept through the first half of his own escape.

It was a good plan.

It had four parts, and the second part was a nap.

"Odds of success are sixty percent," he had said at three in the morning.

He had been lying on the cot with his arms behind his head.

"Forty if I'm awake for it."

"That is not how odds work," said Grant.

"It's how mine work."

At dawn, six guards came down the stairs with a key and a pair of manacles.

They were to take Mr. Phoenix to the Crown dungeons at Emberhall, where no Dean could reach him.

They opened the cell door.

James lay on the cot with his mouth open and a roll on his chest.

"Wake the prisoner," said the sergeant.

A guard poked James.

James did not stir.

A second guard shook his shoulder.

James rolled over and said, very clearly, "Not until three."

"It is seven in the morning."

"Then wake me at three."

The sergeant looked at the four walls, the single window and the sleeping man.

He sighed, and bent to unlock the manacles himself.

That was when the floor of the corridor began to move.

Green shoots burst between the flagstones, thin as grass and then thick as rope.

They went up the walls and across the ceiling and around every guard's ankle, one after another, with great courtesy.

"Sorry," said Felix's voice from the stairwell. "Don't mind me. It's an ivy situation."

"Seize that boy!"

"Can't," said a guard, weakly. "Feet."

Water came down the stairs next.

It came in a tall smooth wave, bluish and cold.

Harry walked on the crest of it with his sleeves rolled up.

It picked up the six guards, gently, and carried them one flight down.

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