before imprisonment, and the one and only time they had been in a room together between then and now.
‘Were you in love with Arjuro?’ he asked.
As usual, she didn’t stop what she was doing and refused to look his way. ‘Why do you ask that?’
‘Because you’re both … I don’t know. Savage. Cruel.’
‘Are you trying to flatter me?’
He laughed. It was the first attempt at humour that Lirah had made. She turned to him, as though surprised by the sound.
‘Well, you both seem the kind who would find each other in a crowded room,’ he said.
Her study stayed intense until she went back to her digging. ‘Arjuro prefers men to women.’
‘Oh,’ he said, surprised for a moment. ‘Well that makes sense, come to think of it. I can’t imagine a woman putting up with that stench.’
‘Yes, well he always did have an aversion to bathing.’
‘But that doesn’t mean you weren’t in love with him.’
She wiped her brow with the back of her hand and it left a mark of dirt.
‘I can safely say we despised each other.’
‘Why?’
Lirah didn’t respond and then Froi understood. ‘Ah. You loved the same man.’
‘You could say that,’ she said quietly, and he knew that he had asked too many questions and that if he didn’t stop, she’d go back to her silence.
‘When I return home, I’ll find a way to send you lavender seeds,’ he said when the sky began to darken and he knew he’d have to leap back.
‘Lavender? In Charyn?’
He waited a moment.
‘About Quintana –’ he began, but she cut him off.
‘I don’t answer questions about Quintana to strangers.’
‘I’m forced to share her bed,’ he said. ‘How can I be a stranger to her?’
‘You ask that of a whore?’ Her eyes flashed with anger, but Froi saw pain there too.
‘Is it true that there’s more than one living inside her head?’
‘Are you asking me if she’s mad?’
He didn’t respond.
‘Do you know what those in the palace say?’ Lirah said. ‘That the King should have tossed her the moment she was born.’
Lirah shuddered at the sound of her own words.
‘Was she always so strange?’ Froi asked.
‘You find her strange?’ she said, harshly. ‘When as a child she managed to separate parts of herself and make them whole beings? Each situation requires a different Quintana. But she survived. In this cesspit. That’s not strange or mad.’ Lirah sent him one of her scathing looks. ‘It’s pure genius. Do you think she was like you or the rest of the lastborns? You may not have been born into wealth, Olivier of Sebastabol, but you’ve been pampered by your province and your mother and father all your life.’
‘Wrong person to say that to,’ he said quietly. ‘Anyway, aren’t you convinced I’m from Serker?’
She looked at him closely. ‘You’re orphaned?’
Froi didn’t respond. ‘Regardless, Quintana wasn’t orphaned. So it can’t have been that bad for her. She had the King, and she had you, her mother.’
Lirah’s laugh was bitter. ‘The King? Have you met the King? A more degenerate man doesn’t exist in Charyn or the land of Skuldenore. The only thing the gods did right was to instil a fear in him of his own daughter because if they hadn’t, his wickedness would have shattered her body and her mind.’
Froi’s blood ran cold. In Lirah’s mind, Quintana may have escaped the depravity of her father, but he knew she hadn’t managed to hide from Bestiano.
‘The gods gave her you,’ he said. ‘That must count for something.’
Lirah gave a laugh of bitter disbelief. ‘Do you know why I’m here? In this prison?’
‘You tried to kill someone. Apart from Gargarin. Was it a man you were forced to bed?’ And then a thought came to him. ‘Sagra! You tried to kill the King?’
She shook her head.
‘There are not many places to hide a dagger when you’re taken to the King’s chamber as his whore.’
Froi stared at her. Wanted to tell her he understood. Wanted to confess the depravity in his own life on the streets of the Sarnak capital as a child. But there was too much shame. Girls were small and helpless. Boys should be able to protect themselves, no matter how young or slight in build.
She stood, brushing the dirt from her shift.
‘What do you think of the cold one? The one that seems to be in charge?’ she asked.
Froi shrugged. ‘I like it better when she’s not around me.’
Lirah collected her pots and string and walked towards her prison. ‘She’s the one to fear. She’ll make you do things that break your heart.’
When it came time to visit Arjuro at the godshouse again, Froi didn’t have the nerve to leap over the gravina. The first time had been enough. Arjuro kept the window to the balconette shut and the curtain drawn most days, but Froi was patient, and one morning he intruded on the brotherly ritual. ‘Arjuro! I’m knocking on the door at midday,’ he shouted. ‘Be sure to open for me.’
Gargarin stared at him with disbelief. ‘Does the word street lords not mean anything to you?’ he asked.
‘Two words, not one. Street. Lords. Care to join me?’ Froi asked. ‘As far as they’re concerned, I’m the Priestling’s messenger.’
Arjuro, of course, didn’t play by the rules and Froi was forced to hammer the door for what seemed hours.
‘Didn’t think you’d be back here,’ the Priestling muttered, bleary-eyed.
‘Why wouldn’t I when there’s so much fun to be had in the Citavita?’ Froi said. ‘This what you’re looking for?’ he asked, holding up a casket he had stolen from the cellars. The Priestling was drunk, his eyes bloodshot and swollen. They studied Froi fiercely.
Froi followed him up the dark space. He’d lost count of the steps and almost understood Arjuro’s reluctance to open the door. When they reached the Hall of Illumination, Froi walked to the balconette where he could see Gargarin watching them from across the gravina. Gargarin didn’t usually stand out on the balconette at this hour of the day, but Froi suspected he was there to see what Froi was up to.
‘Last night I dreamt of the three,’ Arjuro said over his shoulder. ‘Did he?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Gargarin, myself and a third who didn’t live. Throughout my life the third has returned to me in my dreams, and he has returned to me these seven nights past. I wager if you ask my brother, he’ll say the same.’
‘Is it because you have the same face? Do you dream the same things? Sense each other?’
‘It’s because of the third. He haunts us when he needs to. He was born dead.’
‘Arjuro, you’re not making sense,’ Froi said.
Arjuro was quiet a moment, as though he regretted speaking.
‘Tell me about the third,’ Froi persisted.
‘Our poor mother was a girl of fourteen. She refused to believe the third was dead and kept him in the cot alongside Gargarin and myself. Placed him on her breast as if he lived and had the life in him to suckle. Until flies and maggots crawled over us. It’s what our father used to say. “You should have been choked by the maggots and flies that shared your cot.” ’
‘He was a charming man,’ Froi said, repulsed.
‘Is,’ Arjuro corrected. ‘He’s still alive. A madman, frightened of anything strange, and three babes with the same face was too strange for him. So he told all in Abroi that there was only one.’
‘How could he do that if two lived?’
‘By hiding us in a hovel underneath the cottage. When we were four and old enough to work the farm, he would take us out to work one day at a time.’
Froi could not understand what Arjuro was saying. He placed a hand over the cup to stop the Priestling from
