Lorine gave Karigan a sidelong look, perhaps guessing that there was more to Arhys than having been the professor’s favorite. “You may not see it, but she mourns the professor every day. Dr. Silk has been trying to take his place, but he hasn’t the warmth. His smiles are not real, and I think Arhys sees that. I should go check on her.”
She watched after Lorine as she went to Arhys’ room. The last thing Karigan had wanted to do was alienate an ally. She would try to be more delicate with Arhys next time, but her patience was in short supply at the moment. She shrugged and helped herself to some eggs and toast.
A few minutes later, a knock came on the door, and two guards entered, one bearing a couple of boxes.
“You,” the first guard said, pointing at Karigan. “Come here.”
She chafed at being ordered about, but she set her fork down and obeyed.
“Hands out,” the guard said when she reached him.
To her surprise, he took out a key and unlocked her manacles. Grateful, she rubbed her wrists. Meanwhile, the second guard set the boxes down on the sofa.
“Dr. Silk says you are to wear what is in the boxes,” the guard said. “We will be back for you in an hour.” With that, they left, and she looked down at the boxes, speculatively.
“What is it?” Lorine asked, poking her head out from Arhys’ room.
Karigan lifted the lid off the top box, and smiled.
THE MANY FAILURES OF CADE
After seeing the witch, Cade had been taken up a couple floors in the lift and placed in a box of a cell with a solid steel door and no way to look out at anything. There was a metal bench affixed to the wall, no mattress, blankets, or pillow. Bright light poured down on him from a fixture in the ceiling secured behind a grill.
“Remember what you saw,” Starling said before leaving, “and how it could become the fate of your lady.”
They’d unshackled his wrists, but Starling was gone before Cade could attempt to leap past the guards and throttle him. He paced in the tiny chamber, imagining how he’d bash Starling’s head to a pulp against the stone wall if ever given half a chance. That image alternated with that of the tortured witch wearing Karigan’s face.
He paced until exhaustion forced him to sink onto the bench. Though his wounds had been healed, his body had undergone great trauma, and he felt it. His shoulder throbbed, and he gingerly touched the place the bullet had entered, the cloth around it stiffened by dry blood. He did not know how many meals he had missed, but his mouth was dry and his lips chapped. With no natural light to inform him, he’d lost track of time. No one extinguished the light above.
Everything had gone wrong. He’d been a fool to think they could enter the heart of the empire—the emperor’s palace itself—and not get caught. It did not matter what happened to him, but now Karigan would pay the price for his idiocy, as likely would Arhys and Lorine. He’d failed as a Weapon, a rebel, and a man. He had failed in every way, and it was the worst, most helpless feeling.
He covered his face with his hands, continuing to blame himself, when a voice, remembered or actual, once more spoke into his mind: Patience.
The witch, he was sure of it. Did this mean all was not lost, that his plight was not as hopeless as it seemed? Or was he just deluding himself?
Cade curled up on the icy steel bunk, recriminations and hope cycling through his thoughts, his eyes closed against the light, though it was so bright it leaked through his eyelids. He did not expect to sleep in such uncomfortable circumstances, but so fatigued by his ordeal was he, that he began to drift off.
An explosive noise made him leap from a dead sleep to standing in a mere moment, his heart raging against his ribcage. He had no idea what the sound was or where it had come from, but he guessed it was for one purpose only: to torment him, to deny him even the escape of sleep. Without it, he’d be ever more likely to falter and give them the information they wanted. It would weaken him.
He sat once more on the bench and tried to relax. Every time his eyelids drooped, he shook himself awake, his mind and body now anticipating the shocking noise at any moment. When once he drifted off, it did come again, closer, louder. His reaction this time included a shout that was one part shock and one part frustration. He kicked the wall and yelled, then stumbled back to his bench.
He tried to figure out how they spied on him. He scanned the walls, ceiling, and even the floor for a peephole, but saw nothing. This was Gossham, he remembered, the emperor’s palace, where they did not need peepholes. Magic would allow them to view him.
Cade rubbed his eyes and settled in for the duration. Only now, the noise came at unexpected intervals, even when he hadn’t fallen asleep. Otherwise, his existence in his small cell passed like a lifetime. It could have been a matter of a few hours, or an entire night, or more. He had no idea. He was almost grateful when Starling returned.
The door to the cell creaked open and a guard brought in a table and chair, wiping them down while a second guard stood watch over Cade with his hand on his holstered gun. The first guard left, while the second remained.
When Starling entered, he filled much of the room with his buoyant presence as much as with his stout figure. “Well, well, Mr. Harlowe. How are we doing?”
Cade noted he had not made mention of the time of day or night. His answer to the question was, Miserably, which he of course did not speak aloud. A headache from lack of sleep and food plagued him, and his entire body ached. But he would admit none of it.
Starling made a great show of seating himself, then unpacking a basket of food. There was cold chicken and biscuits, and pungent sharp cheese, a plump peach, and a slab of butter cream pie, with a mug of ale to wash it all down. Cade’s stomach grumbled, and he salivated. He tried not to look as Starling worked his way through his food, but the aromas were too pronounced. This was a different sort of torture.