A glyph [https://i.imgur.com/ZLENX3y.png]

Awareness returned in pieces. Smell came first: the world-filling scents of blood and flesh; humans and animals; unfamiliar aromas that stung her nose and throat.

She lay flat on her back, naked, on a hard surface. Above her hung a white-painted ceiling, patterned with brown stains. She tried to turn and couldn’t move. A thick leather strap confined her neck. Leather chafed her wrists and her ankles too were fixed in place.

The attempt to move brought pain, pain in every part of her, but mostly a hot dull ache at the back of her head.

She remembered fighting. She remembered dying: apparently not as thoroughly as she would have liked. The blow to the head must have knocked her out. That explained one pain. But her arms had been torn to shreds by that thing’s claws. In her limited field of vision, she saw no injuries at all, only a faint white tracery of scars.

How long had she been unconscious? Her internal time sense suggested several days had passed, though she couldn’t be sure. Not enough time to heal so thoroughly.

Nearby, someone shuffled — shoes on a wooden floor — breathing heavily with a slight wheeze. She turned her head as far as she could, no more than an inch. All she saw was a table, a glimpse of shelving crowded with jars and bottles.

The shuffling sound came nearer. She strained against the straps, but there was no give in them. Only pain.

A human loomed over her. He was thin, with yellowish skin and pale eyes, and he leaned to the left slightly, as if his muscles were weak on one side. ‘Ah, you’re awake. Good.’ He stroked her forearm. ‘I wasn’t sure about the head injury, but you’re healing well. What remarkable creatures lasker are. It’s a privilege to work on such magnificent raw material.’

The touch of his soft fingers made her shudder. She wrenched at the straps and glared at him.

‘You don’t understand a word I’m saying, do you?’ he said. ‘Never mind. It’s not as if I need to talk to you. It’s only habit. So few people get to see my work, and an artist, you know, more than anything, wants to be appreciated. You, now, you came to me wrecked, and when I’m done, you’ll be good as new. Better.’ He turned and called: ‘Fetch me a scalpel, pet, and the grafts.’

Another human moved somewhere out of sight. Small and light — a scent she remembered now, from the alley with the headless man.

The man stroked her hair. ‘Now, I recommend you stop fighting and relax, my sweet. Not that it will make this any less painful, but if you struggle, I could make a mistake. And then I’d have to start over, which would be irritating for us both.’

L glyph [https://i.imgur.com/2vwU4yB.png]

The door of the prison was iron: a black, greasy slab twice the height of a man. Two masked Wardens stood guard.

Talia conferred with them, then returned. ‘They have to search you.’

Lorie smoothed her skirts with sweating hands. She’d expected the search, and she wasn’t afraid, not with Talia by her side. She stood as directed, tense as the guard ran quick patting hands over her clothes, but it was nothing, only a brief moment of alarm before he stepped away.

Then she must wait again, while the two guards turned a wheel and the door inched open. She focused inward on her steady breathing, counting heartbeats. She had practiced keeping calm, controlling her emotions, and nothing untoward had happened since the lamp-lighting incident. That had been a slip. She’d been afraid, and so the magic… just happened. How, she wasn’t sure, but emotion must be the key. She just had to control herself.

Which wouldn’t be easy, seeing her father in prison. But if she wanted to see him, she must keep the magic under control. The Wardens wouldn’t appreciate her blasting their prison apart, even if it was unintentional.

A few twists of the wheel later, the iron door gaped open. Talia passed through and Lorie followed.

The next door was identical to the first. The single Warden on guard didn’t speak to them and didn’t search Lorie again. She watched him spin the door-locking wheel, wondering if he was a she, or young, or old, and whether he got bored standing in this short passage between the doors for hours with nothing happening.

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If she did his job, she thought she would be afraid of being locked in and the air running out. Of course, that didn’t happen — the Wardens changed shifts every few hours through the day.

Still, as each of the solid iron doors clunked shut behind them, she shivered.

‘Don’t worry,’ Talia said. ‘I’m with you.’ The mask hid what might have been a reassuring smile.

The seventh and final door shut with an echoing clang. Before them, the sloping path into the prison curved in a great circle, spiralling downward like a corkscrew. Each circuit was slightly smaller than the last, so that standing on the edge, she could see the whole path all the way to the bottom of the well.

In the black heart of the mountain, a red ember glowed like a single unblinking eye.

‘What’s down there?’ Lorie asked.

‘Molten rock,’ Talia said. ‘But we never go that far down. Your father’s just along here.’

Lorie followed her down the corkscrew path. The drop was to her left. On her right, iron doors lined the wall and small barred windows offered glimpses into empty prison cells. Half a circuit further, she passed the first cell with a door of timber instead of iron.

‘Here we are,’ Talia said.

Lorie peered through the bars. Her father sat on the bunk with a book in his hands. Her heart jumped. ‘Dad.’

‘Lorie!’ He came to the door. ‘How are you? Is everyone all right?’

He was smiling, happy to see her, but the lines in his face had deepened in these few days. He looked thinner and older.

‘Are you?’ she asked.

‘Of course, why shouldn’t I be?’ He gestured to his cell: walls, floor, and ceiling all panelled with wood. ‘Luxury accommodation, plenty of time to sleep and think. Don’t worry about me. Is there any news of Sam?’

She bit her lip. ‘No.’

‘Well, what’s been done to try and find him?’

‘We don’t know what to do. The Wardens took Nana and me to visit the storeroom a few days ago. It didn’t look like he’d been back there. We collected our clothes and belongings, and there’s a message left, in case he—’

He glowered. ‘We can’t just give up on him.’

‘What else can we do? We don’t know where he is or where to look for him.’ Tears pricked her eyes. ‘And you’re locked up.’

Her father blinked. ‘Sorry.’ He squeezed his hand through the bars. ‘I’m just worried about Sam, about all of you, and there’s nothing I can do.’

She gripped his fingers. The remaining fingers: she tried not to look at the scarred stumps, but she remembered, suddenly, how he had shuddered and cried as the fingers were cut away. How Nana had sewed the raw wounds closed, and when it was done, she’d gone aside, and Lorie had heard her sobbing.

‘It’s not long until the hearing,’ she said. ‘Grace sent messages to Vikki and Danta. With Vikki’s testimony, they’ll find you innocent, won’t they?’

‘I’m not worried about the hearing. The Wardens stay out of House politics. They’ll do the right thing.’

And after the hearing?

She trusted the Wardens, but even if they decided her father was innocent of murder, what then? People would still want her father dead. Sam would still be missing. Grace’s whole family had been slaughtered in broad daylight, in the holiest site in the city. Every day came fresh news of riots and murders.

However the hearing went, all this would still be happening, and there was nothing they could do about it. And her father knew all this as well as she did, but he was trying to reassure her, so she smiled as if she was reassured.

‘Grace sent messages to the Anemari too,’ she said. ‘I don’t think they’ve replied yet.’

The Anemari might yet save them. Grace hadn’t said so, exactly, but Lorie imagined how it would be. Her father would be released after the hearing, then a troop of Anemari marines would escort them all to safety. Phin would be there, of course, and Sam would show up somehow, at the last minute.

After that, she wasn’t sure what would happen. In some versions of the daydream, she sailed away on a ship with Phin, and they married and lived happily ever after. It was a good dream to fill the lonely hours of the night.

That’s all it was, though: a dream.

Her father grimaced. ‘The Anemari aren’t reliable. They’re merchants; they’ll bargain with Eranon, not fight him. The docks are too vulnerable to attack, anyway. They won’t risk their precious ships and warehouses.’ He scrubbed his face with his hands. ‘Sorry, I ramble. Are you all right? How’s Nana?’

‘We’re fine. We’re all fine.’ She glanced at Talia, who was waiting a few cells away, and smiled. ‘The Wardens have been more than kind. Is there anything you need?’

He shook his head.

He looks old. Tired and old.

She slipped her hand into her pocket and found the bodkin she’d pinned into the seam. Two inches of sharp steel needle: it wasn’t much. A very small risk for her. The guard who searched her hadn’t been looking for anything so small, and why should he? It wasn’t a weapon.

Bringing her hand to the bars, she slipped the bodkin into her father’s fingers. He frowned at her, his eyes questioning, but quickly concealed the needle in his clothes.

The bodkin wasn’t much. She wasn’t sure he could even write a sigil left-handed. But it was something, and if the hearing didn’t go to plan, if the worst happened… She regretted the breach of Talia’s trust, but she wanted him to have something.

‘Lorie.’ He cleared his throat. ‘While I’m in here, you have to be strong and look after your grandmothers. Can you do that?’

‘I’ll try.’

‘And whatever happens… whatever happens to me, don’t give up on Sam. Promise me you’ll keep looking.’

He thinks he’s going to die. He knows he will.

She swallowed. Tears stung her eyes and she blinked them back. If she began to cry, she wouldn’t be able to stop, and she mustn’t inflict her own misery on Dad, who had enough to bear. ‘I promise.’