Bridewell Prison was built in 1768 after New York's existing prison, New Gaol, grew so large that another prison was needed. After the war broke out, the British occupying New York took over Bridewell and used it to contain American prisoners of war. What was first a forced labour institution soon became a holding prison.

In spite of the building's youth, it looked bleak and hopeless from where I stood outside the iron gates. The prison yard was dry and dusty, baked by the June sun, and the sand whispered across the ground, whirling away the faint traces of footsteps stamped into the dust.

It had been almost three full days since the guards had dragged Connor through these gates, and still I was helpless. I pressed my cold hands into my skirt, tangled my fingers in the grubby apron around my waist. I did not think I had ever been so frightened; I did not know what would happen to him in there - at best a sound beating, at worst I could not fathom - but I had to be strong for him. I had to be brave.

These days, he was all I thought about. I prayed that he would be all right. I wondered if he was thinking of me as much or as desperately as I was him. Tallmadge had seen my worry and had made weak attempts to ease my mind, and though his efforts were futile, I appreciated them nonetheless.

The previous day, I had intercepted one of the prison guards on his way to burn the belongings of the new prisoners, and I had spent almost every penny I had in order to get Connor's possessions back. I stored them in our attic space, but I could not look at them, because every glance was a reminder.

It was my fault that Connor was in Bridewell. It was my fault that something in our friendship had cracked the moment we kissed. But I was selfish - I was so, so selfish, because all I wanted was to hold his hand and kiss him again.

The stone wall that surrounded the penitentiary was high - too high and flat for me to climb without some sort of leverage. My only way in was through the gate.

Tallmadge and I had been meeting urgently over the past few days, putting our heads together to think of an escape plan for Connor. All was hopeless and in vain. Tallmadge pleaded on Connor's behalf to the prison warden, insisted on my friend's innocence, but his words fell on deaf ears.

Prisoners in Bridewell usually faced a sentence of more than three years, and with an alleged counterfeiting offense, Connor could face up to ten years. Ten years locked behind iron bars, far from the sun, far from the trees, far from his people. His bright spark would flicker out until there was nothing left of my friend whom I loved.

A few people had clustered at the front gate today, so I joined the edge of the crowd. At midday, the gate would be opened, and visitors could enter for an hour - and it looked like only a precious few prisoners would be getting visitors today. I heard an old woman say she was visiting her son, who was in for twenty years, and the pain in her voice made me close my eyes, tune their voices out.

As the church clock behind me struck twelve, two guards crossed the empty courtyard, their footprints already fading in the sand, and opened the gate. One at a time, we were allowed to enter.

Somewhere above me, I heard the harsh screech of a crow, and when I looked up, I saw the dark spread of wings. I wondered how many men had died in this prison, how many had not seen the sun since the day they were locked in.

There was another guard at the door, taking notes of the prisoners to receive visitors, and searching every person they stopped for weapons or food or items of clothing.

The guard who stopped me was young - I would place him in his mid-thirties, with crooked teeth and a wispy moustache - and his voice sounded as bored as though he had been made recite a children's rhyme for the twentieth time. "Name?"

"Cassandra Glade," I said.

He hardly looked up at me. "Who're you seeing?"

"Connor." I took a chance, but he gave me a confused look, one that told me I needed to be more specific. Though it started an ache in my heart, I said the words I did not want to say. "The Indian."

His face cleared, and he began to nod. "Down the hall, on the left. Second to last cell." Now, he eyed me with a little more interest. "I didn't expect the savage to get such a pretty visitor," he said, with the sort of tone that implied that he thought Connor had paid money for my company.

I did not expect a prison guard to be so boring, and yet here he was. I passed him by without another word, without a backwards glance - even when he turned his head to watch me leave, I did not look back.

The prison was split into three levels, though the floors themselves stretched only along the perimeter of the building and were connected by bridges and stairways. The centre was a wide, open space, where one could look down into the common area and see the prisoners convene.

Connor was not in the common area. I walked past rows of dark, damp cells, and the men inside gave me increasingly hostile looks. One stuck an arm through the bars and made to swipe at me, to touch my hair, but I ducked away from him.

At the end of the hall, a guard stood peering into the second to last cell, rattling the bars with his blunt baton like there was an animal inside that interested him, a monkey or a tiger or a hippopotamus.

I had always known that Connor was, and would continue to be, treated differently because of the way he looked - but I had never seen such a harsh display of that racial discrimination until now, and a surge of hate lit my blood on fire.

When the guard saw me, he straightened up somewhat sheepishly, and tucked the baton into his belt. "There's an Indian in there," he said. He was young, and had never seen one before.

I was in no mood for negotiating with him, and stalked past him to the barred door, ignoring the stench of body odour that came from the guard's direction.

The bars were icy when I lay my hand on them. "Connor," I said.

His cell was small and dim, furnished only with a grubby mattress and a dented bucket in the corner. One dingy window stood solitary in the back wall, and below this, sitting silent and pensive on the stone floor, was Connor. When he saw me, he was on his feet and at the door in a single movement, reaching out to touch my hand.

He murmured my name, or a variation of it, but I hardly heard him. The knuckles of both his hands were horribly split, and there was a cut on his eyebrow that would not stop bleeding; the trail of blood snaking down his cheek and neck was drying, and I reached out to, very gently, touch his cheek.

He flinched away. Before I could ask what had happened, he said, "It seems our friend Thomas has some friends of his own in here. They paid me a welcoming visit."

It took a moment for me to realise he was referring to Hickey, and not to our friend Thomas Carter. By the look of him, he had put up a good fight - but he had not won.

I touched his cheek again, and this time, he did not flinch. He reached up, traced his fingers along my wrist. His hand was shaking a little - not from fear, but exertion, tension, pain. I wanted to cry.

His eyes flicked furtively over to the guard, who was walking up the hall, his back to us in a weak offer of privacy. Once the man was far enough, Connor said quietly, urgently, "They are here. Lee and Kenway. They plan to pardon Hickey and have him released."

If Hickey was to be released, the Templars would ensure that Connor never saw daylight again - or, if he were to see it, it would be at his own execution. My hand tightened on the bar. This was not fair. It was my fault that he was locked in here.

I started to shake my head. "You don't deserve this. You don't deserve to be here."

In spite of the blood on his face, his eyes were sharp. "Do not tell me what I do and do not deserve."

His tone was so strong, so determined, that it did little to ease my mind: his insistence upon resilience only made me sad. The mask of strength he wore did not waver.

"How will we get you out of here?" I whispered to him instead, and he told me that he had become acquainted with a fellow prisoner, Parson Mason Locke Weems, who had spent three months carving a skeleton key from a piece of metal in order to escape.

Weems had given him the key - he showed me, discreetly, that he had stashed it in the pocket of the torn breeches he had been made wear (the guards had taken his clothes and given him a simple shirt and breeches, and he was barefoot) - and he told me that his next task was one he was not looking forward to.

"You have to start a fight?" I echoed. "Why?"

"To get myself placed in the pit." His sharp face was taut with disdain: he disliked this plan as much as I did, if not more. "It is the high-security area of the prison, overseen by the warden himself. If I can switch my key for his one, I can let myself out and find Hickey tonight."

It would be too risky for him to go prowling about the prison alone like that. "I'll find him for you," I said. "We can meet up and I'll show you the way."

He nodded slowly, but every so often his eyes flicked up again, looked past me - the guard was coming back. "That could work."

I could see the guard from the corner of my eye, so I leaned closer to the bars. Our faces were so close that I could feel his light breaths on my cheeks. To the guard, it would look like we were sharing a soft, final kiss.

"Tonight," I breathed.

He nodded slowly, his eyes already shutting down: what little emotion he had shown me was shoved into a knapsack and locked away. "Tonight," he echoed, equally as quiet.

We could say no more to one another, because once the guard returned, he told me to leave and snapped at Connor to get back in his cage. I looked over my shoulder just before I left, and caught Connor's eye, no more than a gleam in the darkness of his cell.

Tonight.

*

When the night was fully dark and the streets were still, I crept onto the roof of one of the buildings neighbouring Bridewell Prison, and leaped from the roof onto the high wall surrounding the prison. The patrolling guards did not see me climb down and slip into a shadowy doorway.

The door led into a dark passageway, with moisture dripping down its stone walls. I stepped carefully over patches of slippery moss, keeping one hand on the wall to guide my way without light.

Freedom was so close. He would escape this prison, and I would. . . I would. . .

I shook my head. It was ridiculous, letting my thoughts get the better of me like this. His life was in danger, and here I was, remembering how it felt to have his mouth on mine. I should not think of him like this, and yet I wanted to. I wanted and I wanted and I wanted.

He was gentle, and he was kind, and he was strong and capable, and he made me feel strong and capable. His heart was so full of love, but he had nowhere to put it. Put it on me, I wanted to beg. Love me.

I wondered if he still would have kissed me had we been sober that night. I wanted, desperately, almost maddeningly, to touch his skin, to feel his hand on my neck like I had that night.

But more than that, I wanted to make him smile. I wanted to bring him flowers from the meadow. I wanted to take his hands and dance with him. To see his dark eyes shine with joy, and to hold him - oh, how I longed to hold him, and to be held by him. He was my partner in crime, my fellow Half-Templar Bastard, and the most infuriating person I had ever met - but above all of that, he was my best friend.

I wiped a tear from my cheek. Getting emotional was stupid.

The narrow passageway ended abruptly at a heavy wooden door. A timid push told me the door was locked; I knelt on the floor, ignoring the damp that soaked through the knees of my breeches, and carefully took my picks from within my shirt.

Picking the lock took time, for it was tedious work - keeping it silent, particularly, was the hardest part. When I pushed the door open, slowly, the hinges let out a loud, grating screech, and I froze, heart hammering in my ears, and waited.

No footsteps came. No alarm sounded. I crept into the next room: a dark cellar, lined with shelves of musty clothes - those belonging to the prisoners, ready to be taken away and burned.

I passed through here, making my way by touch rather than by sight, and the only sounds were my heartbeat in my ears and the slow, steady drip of water from a cracked wall.

Another door faced me at the end of this room, damp and chipped with age and termites. This one did not have a lock, and swung open when I pushed it with my fingertips.

Facing me now were rows of cells, lit by sparsely-placed torches on the walls between the bars. Silence echoed off the cold stone, silence so loud it was all-consuming. I was acutely aware of every breath I drew, every step I took.

I clung to the shadows as I passed the cells. Some were empty, but most contained at least one man, many of whom were sleeping, sprawled on their flea-infested mattresses.

Somewhere far away, a man was screaming. The sound chilled me deeper than my bones - the noise came from somewhere far, somewhere deep, where the stone swallowed up all sound until there was only icy air to fill his lungs.

None of the men in these cells were Hickey. I passed on. A night guard rounded a corner ahead of me, walking away from me, and I followed him until he paused to overlook the common area I had noted earlier: nothing stirred the stillness of the prison this night. I ducked into an empty cell as he turned and retraced his steps, holding my breath both to remain quiet and to block out the stink of the cell.

When I stepped out again, I found I could walk no further without crossing the bridge over the empty space. I ducked low and went very slowly. My legs began to ache from the angle at which I walked, but I gritted my teeth, commanding my legs to move, and crossed the bridge, though it was a relief to straighten again - only in the cover of the shadows.

Connor's cell was on this side, but it was empty now. He was in the pit, or - I hoped, I prayed - out of it by now.

There was a door at the end of this corridor, left unlocked by the last patrolling guard, who would return any moment. I slipped inside, and the only sound was the faint scuff of the door against the uneven floor.

The cells were bigger in this sector than in the rest of the prison: spacious cells meant that the prisoners here were of higher priority, of more importance. If the Templars had moved Hickey, he would be here.

There were not as many cells here, either - and there were far less guards patrolling these halls. It was easier, therefore, for me to creep past the rows and rows of empty cells - until I reached one that was not empty.

Inside lay a man, curled on his side on his mattress. His back faced me, but it had to be Hickey - it had to be. Still, I waited, and watched him intently, waiting for any movement that might cause me to see him better.

The shadows flickered as a cloud crossed over the moon, and I held my breath. An age crawled by, an age in which I waited, and waited, and waited. In the absence of my own breaths, I heard him breathing instead: quiet, steady breaths, even and unhindered.

The man in the cell shifted, and I saw the profile of his face, and I knew it was Hickey - I saw his snubbed nose, saw the dirty scruff along his jaw, saw the blackened teeth inside his half-open mouth.

There were no bars on Hickey's window: this, I thought, was how Connor and I would escape.

I crept back down the halls, past the cells of prisoners awaiting death, awaiting a resurrection that would never come, and found Connor outside the pit.

He looked worse than when I had left him - a dark bruise was spreading under his right eye, and his lower lip was split, the blood from which was smeared across his chin, like he had, in aggravation, tried to wipe it off.

In spite of it all, he smiled when he saw me. He smiled and it was for me. I licked my thumb and wiped the blood from his chin, thinking of how it felt to kiss him, how gentle his mouth had been.

If he was thinking the same thing, he made no indication. He reached out again, brushed his thumb over my wrist. There was a gentleness in him that I had seen only rarely, only for me. "Tell me where he is."

I told him, in hushed tones, where Hickey's cell was. I could easily have killed Hickey myself - and, admittedly, I probably should have - but had I done so, that would still have left the question of Connor, and how he would get out. If we were to climb out Hickey's window, both of us needed to be there.

As I led him through the winding halls to Hickey's cell, I was highly aware of his proximity to me, silent as he was, and I was once more filled with the desire to reach back, to touch his hand.

I was a fool. Tenderness could not be found in a place like this, a place where men came to die.

Once I brought Connor to the cell, I realised that something was wrong. I could not hear Hickey's breaths. That quiet sound was gone, and was replaced by an emptiness so wide that I could hear my own heart beating, straining against the confines of my chest like it was about to tear my ribs apart.

I hissed something to Connor, but he did not hear me, and had already stepped into the cell, his face cold with quiet anger.

He reached out to Hickey, but something was wrong. In the dim light, I could see Connor's face grow severe with his frown, and he rolled Hickey to the floor to see what would happen.

It was not Hickey.

It was the warden. And he was dead.

This was a trap. I opened my mouth to warn Connor–

A cold, sweaty hand clapped over my mouth from behind, pulling me close to a stinking person.

"Not what you was expecting, am I right?" purred the real Thomas Hickey in my ear.

Another dark figure stepped around him, and Connor watched with wide eyes as he was faced with his greatest enemy, the object of his hate, his rage.

Charles Lee looked down his hooked nose on us and crooned, "What have we here? I thought we'd finished off your kind."

Hickey leaned his head closer to me; I heard him smell my hair. If it were any other person holding me like this, I would have bitten his finger - but I could not bite Hickey, as I feared I would catch a disease from him. So I remained still, and silent, trying to think of the best way I could fight myself out of this.

Connor's voice was sharp as he said to Lee, "You would like that, wouldn't you? To rid the world of all who do not share your views?"

When Lee laughed, it was without emotion or joy - rather, it was a sound of scorn, of venom. "Guilty as charged. Your meddling in the revolution has caused us no small measure of grief. It cannot continue. Our work is too important. But, what would you know beyond all the lies Achilles feeds you, and the tales you tell yourself?"

Though he didn't look at me, I knew Connor's focus was on me. "I know that the people wish to be free, and that men like Washington fight to make it so."

"Please," scoffed Lee. "The man is weak. He stumbles and stammers through each engagement, making it all up as he goes along. His pedigree is pathetic; his military record even more so. I could go on and on but we would be here for days, so manifold are his faults, so deficient are his merits. He must be dealt with. You as well." His cold eyes turned on me as he said this, and he said to the room, "I will abide no more flies in the ointment."

"Here's how it's gonna work," said Hickey, and his grip on me did not loosen. My arms were pinned to my sides, preventing me from driving an elbow into his ribs.

"First," he continued, "we bind ya and bring ya to your cell. Then, tomorrow, you go before the court, accused of plotting to kill good 'ol Georgie. Maybe we could pin the murder of the warden on you, too. And who wouldn't take the word of Charlie over here?" His voice turned dark. "And once that's all squared away, well, then. . ." He took his hand from my mouth to mime a rope around his neck.

With Hickey momentarily distracted, I hooked my foot around his leg and pulled. It impaired his balance only slightly, but in his surprise, his grip on me loosened, and I wiggled one arm free to elbow him square in the chest as hard as I could.

He wheezed, all breath driven from his lungs, and then I was falling forward, pain was blooming across my head. My cheek was crushed into the floor as a weight - Hickey - settled on my back, pinning my arms so I could not move.

At the moment when Hickey brought me down, Connor lunged for him, but Lee pushed my friend up against the wall. There was a fire  burning in Connor's eyes such that I had never seen before: a rage that blazed on and on and on.

Lee must have seen the same flames in his eyes, because he tilted his head slowly, contemplatively. "All those years ago," he said, "that child in the forest was you."

"I said I would find you," Connor spat, but Lee only laughed, saying, "And so you have! But not quite as you had expected, am I right?"

Connor surged forward again, vicious as an animal, but Lee forced him back with an arm against his throat. "You know," said Lee, "all of this might have been avoided had you only done what I asked. But. . . what's done is done."

The weight disappeared from my shoulders, and Hickey seized my arms and pulled me roughly upright. Connor struggled again to reach me, but Lee pressed him harder into the wall, his arm against Connor's throat forcing all breath from him.

As I was dragged from the cell, I could not see nor hear what Lee did to Connor; I knew only that there came a sudden silence, an emptiness, a void. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tear Hickey's bones apart and run back to Connor. But I was being held too tightly: one hand gripped my hair and pulled hard, jerking my head back at an angle that nearly blinded me. I felt Hickey lean closer again, felt his breath on my neck as he said, "Come on, sweetheart. Let's go pay Haytham a visit."