For a moment Peret Volsk’s eyes roamed over us, plainly trying to make sense of what he saw. His gaze had been dark to match his hair during his time as apprentice to the Vigil. Now it matched the color of obsidian, set by lurid bruises on his face. Blood discolored his mouth.
I shook my head, confused. “Why would they bother to beat him?”
A coughing sound filled the cell, and Volsk bent with the effort as fresh droplets of crimson stained his lips. No. Not coughing. Laughing.
“Lord Dura,” Volsk wheezed, “we seem to have a penchant for meeting in prisons. This cell is slightly larger than the one I occupied in Bunard. I managed to solve the measurement problem. Would you like to know how I did it?”
Bolt and Mirren looked at me, and with effort I pulled a memory out of my past. “He’s not from Moorclaire, but he enjoys the mathematicum just the same.”
“What did you do to him?” Bolt asked. Mirren took a step back at the threat in the question, but Volsk waved him off.
“Not her,” he said.
For some reason I couldn’t identify, Volsk’s appearance roused a protective anger in me. This, for the man who’d tried to arrange my death so that he could inherit the gift of domere. The idiocy of that struck me. Would there be some set of circumstances that would lead me to pity Bishop Gehata? And if so, what would those be?
“Fool men,” Mirren said, “talking when you should be moving. Save your questions until we’re safe.”
Bolt moved to lift Volsk from the floor. “Stop,” Volsk said. “If you move me I’ll die that much sooner.” He coughed again, weaker this time. “I made a mistake.”
“Only one?” I asked.
A bit of his former arrogance flared in his eyes before it turned to ash. “I mocked the bishop one time too many,” he said. “I thought I would be a healer, once. My ribs are broken. My lungs are bleeding.”
“We can’t stay here,” Mirren said.
Bolt rose, his movements unexpectedly gentle as he rested Volsk on the floor. The traitorous Vigil apprentice closed his eyes, his breathing quick and shallow, but a moment later his hand twitched, hardly more than a flutter.
Instinctively, I knew what he wanted. Reaching out, I laid a hand on his head and fell into the dying ruin of his mind. He wasn’t there to greet me. The dim color to his thoughts bore witness to his passing, but there was a book floating before me. With the barest touch of thought it flared into light, and Volsk’s most precious memories became my own. Darkness descended within his mind and I broke contact.
The Vigil’s apprentice lay dead. I created a door within my mind and interred his memories within the room beyond. Then I marked it with Toria Deel’s name and sealed it shut. I might never have the chance to give them to her, and I wondered if she would want them.
We left the cell after Bolt closed Volsk’s eyes.
I’d expected Mirren to take us to the next level beneath, but instead she led us thirty paces down the hall and stopped to open a door on the left. I darted in, my mind conjuring images and revenge. In the light, Custos blinked at me. Though he looked wan and hungry, he didn’t carry the mass of bruises Volsk did.
“Hello, Willet.” His voice rasped with disuse.
“Let’s leave the joyful reunions for later,” Bolt said. “I don’t fancy trying to fight off any of the cosp without a sword. ‘Long odds make for bad outcomes.’”
I nodded as we made what speed we could up the stairs toward freedom. “I like that one.”
He snorted, and I could see the grimace on his stony face as we turned on one of the landings. “That’s a surprise, coming from you. You don’t hope for miracles—you rely on them.”
We released Hradian from his cell and soon came to the top. I could feel a difference in the stone. Even though I suspected dawn had yet to break, I sensed I was once again in the presence of sun-warmed rock. The guards at the entrance to the prisons stood facing away from us, blinking and swaying on their feet.
Mirren held out a hand, then raised a finger to her lips. We waited as she went forward, her steps almost too light to hear. Almost.
The guards turned, their motions sluggish, and made to draw, but when they saw her they faltered. Mirren extended her bare hand, first to one and then the other, and the stares of the guards became as glass.
“She’s good at that,” I said.
Bolt nodded. “She’s had a bit of practice.”
Mirren pointed. “That’s the closest way out.”
Thoughts still churned in my head, like silt stirred from the river bottom, but I knew enough to ask Custos for confirmation. It was only after he nodded that it occurred to me that Mirren would only point out the closest avenue of escape if she didn’t mean to come with us.
“It’s been hours since I touched Gehata,” she said. “If I don’t return, his memories will settle and he’ll know what I’ve done.”
“What did you see in Gehata’s mind?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t take the time to delve him.”
“We’re going with you,” Bolt said. “Lieutenant, you must find Bishop Serius and bring him to Gehata’s quarters.”
Hradian nodded, relieved one of the guards of his sword, and strode down the passageway. As he turned a corner, Mirren hissed, “I didn’t go to the trouble of getting you out of prison just so you could put yourself back.”
Bolt gave her a quick nod before relieving the other guard of his weapon. “We won’t be going back.”
Mirren’s expression matched her laughter, but she didn’t get the chance to put voice to her objection.
“I think it’s better than fives that Bishop Gehata already knows who holds the gift of kings and that he’s taken them
