Lorine appeared before Karigan and pressed a glass into her hand. When she lifted it to drink, her hand dragged on something and there was the clink of metal. Her other hand, she realized. Her wrists were manacled. When had those been put on?
Prisoner.
She drank deeply trying to gather her wits, and when she paused, she eyed Lorine who looked none the worse for her time at the palace. She wore no restraints, no manacles.
“Lorine,” she asked, “you are all right?”
“Yes, miss. We have not been harmed.”
“Arhys is . . . ?”
Lorine nodded. “She is having lessons with some of the palace children right now.”
“Let me see into your eyes,” the mender told Karigan. She saw a brand on his forearm and realized he was a slave.
A pinpoint of light formed magically between the tips of his thumb and forefinger, and he aimed it into her eyes. “Easy,” he said in a soothing voice. “The light will not hurt you. I just need to see how your eyes react to it.”
She did not feel threatened by him, so she obeyed, and he grunted with approval at what he saw.
“All is well,” he told her. “I will leave word with the guards that they are to inform me if you should become ill, but I do not think there will be a problem.” With that, he collected a case that must hold his instruments and let himself out of the room. Beyond the door, she saw a flicker of red that must be guards.
She felt for her brooch. It was there, hidden by its spell. Next, she checked her pocket. Her moonstone was missing. She’d been searched. She gazed about. The room she occupied was well-furnished. She sat upon a plush sofa. There was art on the walls, and doors leading to other rooms. If not for the knowledge of where she truly was, she would have guessed she was in some country manse. If not for the manacles on her wrists, she might have found it comfortable.
Lorine sat down beside her. “Oh, Miss Goodgrave! How did you come to be here? Did Dr. Silk bring you, or that horrid Mr. Starling?”
“No. I came with . . .” And when she remembered Luke was dead and probably Cade, too, she could speak no more.
DR. SILK’S EYES
“Miss Goodgrave?” Lorine shook Karigan’s arm. Chains clinked. “Miss Goodgrave, please, what is it?”
Karigan barely heard her. Her vision had narrowed, grown dark. She could not grasp the loss.
“I—I came with Luke and Cade,” she said finally. It was too much to tell Lorine everything, all the events that had led to her being there. “Luke is dead and . . .”
Lorine clapped her hands to her mouth and paled. Karigan had not been the only one who loved Cade.
“Nooo!” Lorine wailed. “It can’t be true—it can’t!”
While Lorine was able to express her grief, Karigan could not seem to. She was broken, unable to speak, act.
The door to the room opened, and a pair of guards barged in. Even distraught, Lorine had the presence of mind to veil her face. Karigan had no veil, nor did she care. The guards roughly pulled her to her feet and without another word, pushed her out of the room. The door was slammed behind her, cutting off Lorine’s sobs.
The details of the corridors the guards dragged Karigan down were lost to her. She did not see others who passed by. She was trapped inside herself. She thought they passed a fountain with the statue of a dragon in it, and only noticed because it reminded her of something, but she let it go. Nothing else mattered.
Eventually they entered a darkened room, and the guards forced her into a chair. It was unmistakably an office with bookcases and a massive desk, and sitting on the other side of that desk was Dr. Silk gazing at her through those specs of his. She should want to kill him, she thought, for any part he might have played in Cade’s death, but it was hard enough just to sit upright and not fold into a fetal position. She was cold ashes, not fire.
Dr. Silk waved the guards out and then stared at her, alternately gazing at something lying on his desk.
“You are she,” he said at last.
Karigan stirred. “What?”
“You are Miss Goodgrave,” he said, “or whatever your real name may be. Do you remember the image-trapper at my dinner party?” He lifted a framed picture, tilting it so she could see. “The image of you is still oddly transparent, but less so now.”
Karigan blinked, focused. It was her in black and white and layers of gray. Her posture was stiff and unnatural, the expression on her face dead of emotion. She could have been looking in a mirror, for the image reflected how she felt at this very moment. But Dr. Silk was right—she could see the backdrop through her face as though she had used her fading ability at the time of the image-trapping. Cade is gone. The thought had nothing to do with the picture or Dr. Silk sitting there on the other side of the desk. It came unbidden.
Dr. Silk set the portrait aside and folded his black-gloved hands on the desk. “What is your real name?”
“Does it matter?” Nothing mattered, not with Cade gone.
“It does to me. That you acknowledge you are not a Goodgrave is a positive beginning.”
“Ask your emperor. He knows who I am.” She glanced listlessly at his shelves. They were much neater than the professor’s had been, but there were similar artifacts; a rusted helmet, a skull, rolled maps.
“The emperor is currently indisposed.” A muscle twitched in his cheek.
“Seeing me was too much for Amberhill, was it?”
It was difficult to gauge Silk’s expression with those specs concealing his eyes, but she saw him start in surprise. “My dear,” he said, “it would be wise of you to use care when speaking of the emperor.”