Matilda smacked the back of his head, not gently. “The king commands that you be held, for the moment,” she said. “Suffice it to say that you are not in the Tower. Your friends will not be bursting in to rescue you.”
Emily had already guessed as much. The Tower of Alexis had been broken. It would take Randor’s magicians weeks to replace the wards she’d torn down, assuming the building itself could be repaired. There was even a very real possibility that the parchment she’d used to hack the wards was still inside the building, although there was no way anyone could count on it. No, Randor would want her somewhere else. And that means she was probably in the castle. The dungeons were as close to impregnable as possible.
Alassa knows about the secret passageways, she thought, feeling a flicker of hope. But her father knows about them too.
She wondered, sourly, why she was still alive. Matilda could have killed her on the spot or simply slit her throat while she was unconscious. She didn’t even know how long she’d been unconscious! A Healer could heal her in…how long? A day? Two days? They’d want to be sure the potion had dampened her magic before allowing her to regain conscious…two to three days seemed about right. But it could have been longer. It wouldn’t have been that hard to force-feed her a nutrient potion while she was unconscious. She could have been out for a week or two weeks…she reminded herself, silently, that her period had been due in a week. If it happened, if she felt it, she’d know she couldn’t have been kept unconscious for more than a couple of days.
Matilda reached forward and placed a finger under Emily’s chin, slowly lifting her face until their eyes met. “Perhaps you could answer me a question,” she said. “How did you open a portal into the Tower?”
“Magic,” Emily said, dryly.
She swallowed, hard. Randor knew what she’d done…and he knew enough about magic to know how remarkable it was. Of course he did. He might not be that powerful, himself, but he’d studied extensively. He’d want to know what she’d done, how she’d done it and how it could be used to benefit himself. Emily cursed under her breath. No wonder she’d been kept alive. Randor wanted–needed–an edge in the war. He thought she could give it to him.
“We have ways of making you talk,” the dwarf said.
Emily scowled. The tired old cliché would have been funny, except…except there was nothing funny about her situation. She was a prisoner–she was manacled and drained of magic–completely at their mercy. Lady Barb had warned her to expect everything from direct mental interrogation and truth potions to beatings and outright rape. She didn’t think Randor would normally order a noblewoman raped–even his closest supporters would be outraged, although they wouldn’t give a damn about a commoner woman who was raped by their soldiers–but the king was desperate. Who knew what he’d do to get answers?
“Magic,” Matilda replied. “What kind of magic?”
Don’t say a word, Emily told herself. Lady Barb had warned her about this, too. Her captors would try to develop a rapport with her, eventually lulling her into revealing a little bit too much. The wrong piece of information could be used to put the whole picture together. Emily doubted they had any other pieces–Jade and Cat would have made sure to destroy the spellware and set fire to the warehouse–but she could be wrong. Matilda must have sensed the spells holding the portal together…
Matilda let out a sigh. “You do realize you will be made to talk?”
Emily met her eyes, willing her to believe. “You do realize that my thoughts are protected?”
“They all say that,” Matilda told her, curtly. “And they all fall, in the end.”
“Brave words,” the dwarf added. “I’ve heard them before, from a thousand rebels and traitors and common criminals. They have all told me they will never talk. And, in the end, they have all broken. I will break you too, in time.”
“My thoughts are protected,” Emily repeated. She wasn’t entirely sure that was true. Her mental defenses were strong–Lady Barb and Sergeant Miles had seen to that–but they weren’t unbreakable. The spell that had once shielded her thoughts from being ripped out of her head was gone. “You will not be able to force me to talk.”
Matilda shrugged. “We will see.”
Her voice hardened. “You are alone, Lady Emily. Your companions have fled the city, leaving you to your fate. They don’t care about you.”
Emily gritted her teeth, trying to ignore the little voice in the back of her head that suggested Matilda had a point. She’d told Jade and Cat to flee with the librated prisoners. They’d planned to teleport out as soon as they escaped the Tower…although none of their contingency plans had suggested that one of them would be taken prisoner during the breakout. In hindsight, she told herself, that was a rather careless oversight. How would her friends react? They didn’t know where to find her, they didn’t know how to get her out…
…And, if they wanted to overthrow Randor, they’d need to get Alassa and Imaiqah to Swanhaven and Cockatrice as quickly as possible.
Her heart sank. Her friends would beat themselves up over the prospect of leaving Emily behind, but they would have no choice. They couldn’t let Randor have the time he’d need to secure the two baronies and ensure they couldn’t be turned into a base for civil war. Alassa and Jade would have to go to Swanhaven, Imaiqah would have to go to Cockatrice…and Cat would have to go with them. They couldn’t take the risk of hanging around long enough to plot another rescue.
They do care about me, she thought. It was a bitter thought. But the needs of the many–the need to overthrow a mad king–outweigh the needs of the one.
Matilda smiled, coldly. “No one will blame you for switching sides, now you’ve been captured. The king might even accept your parole.”
Emily doubted it. She wasn’t bound by the formalities. Randor knew, perfectly well, that she hadn’t been born in Zangaria. She was no nobleman who spoke loudly of his honor when the situation called for it. Besides, the damage had already been done. Alassa was free and on her way to Swanhaven. Randor wouldn’t trust Emily to remain on the sidelines, no matter what oaths she gave him, and it didn’t matter anyway. The civil war was already starting.
“And if you don’t, I get to have fun,” the dwarf said. He reached out and took hold of Emily’s hair, tugging it hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. “Do you know what fun we’ll have together?”
Emily ignored him. Instead, she looked at Matilda. “The king is mad,” she said. “How long do you think it will be until he throws you aside?”
“The king is loyal to his supporters and faithful to those who are faithful to him,” Matilda told her. “And you were neither loyal nor faithful.”
“Hah,” Emily said. She wasn’t a noblewoman, nor had she ever wanted to be one. King Randor had practically tricked her into accepting the barony, although that had blown up in his face. “Who trained you? I know you didn’t go to Whitehall.”
Matilda shrugged. “I had private tutors. Some of us…prefer to remain out of the broadsheets.”
A secret weapon, Emily thought. If no one knows about her, no one can prepare for her.
She looked down at the stone floor. There was no law against magicians having private tutors, not if they didn’t want to go to school. It was rare, particularly for someone as powerful as Matilda appeared to be, but…she could see some advantages to it. No one saw Matilda as anything other than a drab lady of the court, a woman who had dawdled too long when it came to searching for a decent husband and found herself unable to make a good match. How many people had sneered at Matilda over the years, mocking her for waiting too long? And how many of them had guessed, in their wildest dreams, that she could kill them with a thought?
None, Emily guessed. She silently credited Randor for the plan. How many people would have expected him to put a woman in such an important post?
“The king paid for your education,” she guessed. “Correct?”