He imagined the one in front of him—the one that led deeper into the prison—led to the first rows of prisoners. Was his mother there, or deeper down? Was her cell beneath his feet?
The ball in his gut expanded until Rone had to lean over to compensate for its weight. He struggled to breathe. Perspiration pebbled his skin, and his teeth chattered from the coldness of it. The guard pulled a lamp from the wall beside him.
There were no lights down these corridors. Surely that meant they each ended in some sort of sealed door, something obscuring the light from within. Surely his mother wasn’t sitting in utter darkness, wondering what she’d done to deserve her place in this dank hell.
Rone swallowed. A headache twisted behind his eyes. “Do they hurt the prisoners here?”
The guard regarded him with dark eyes. “This way,” he said, leading him down the corridor to his left. After a few steps, he said, “Not the quiet ones.”
Rone’s hands shook, so he stuck them in his pockets, finding some solace in the amarinth and the wad of cash. His mother would be fine. She followed the rules. She wasn’t the type to scream her head off if wrongfully incarcerated.
She had been utterly silent the day his father left.
The guard’s lamp illuminated walls covered in metal sheeting; Rone could see the blurs of his reflection in them as they walked. The corridor turned. They approached another door. The guard knocked, and a slit opened, exposing a set of eyes. It closed, a bolt shifted, and the door opened.
More light, Rone thought as he passed into the small room lit with half a dozen lamps, their smoke mingling before lifting through an air vent in the ceiling. Thank the damnable god for that.
He finally got some air into his lungs. His chaperone muttered something to one of the other guards in the area—there were three—and showed him the papers. They reviewed them together. Nodded. His chaperone passed the documents to the new guard, who said, “This way. The warden’s last appointment just left.”
This would never happen in Godobia. Or Ysben. Or even Serrana. While he’d never been to any of those places, their traders and merchants infiltrated Kolingrad often, especially during the summers. That, and his mother liked collecting foreign books. They all might have been fiction, but they painted the picture of the southern countries well enough.
Rone nodded and cleared his throat. He didn’t want to sound afraid when it was finally his turn to talk.
The new guard took a key ring off his belt and opened another door. They passed through another hallway, through another guarded door, around various twists and turns, and then came to a stop in front of yet another door, where the guard with Rone’s papers finally knocked.
Rone had a fantastic sense of direction, but he wasn’t sure he could find his way back out of this place without help. How intricate did the labyrinth become, deeper in, where the lamps didn’t shine?
A voice called out to them from inside. The guard cracked open the door and, reading off the papers, said, “Rone Comf to see you, order of visitor rights. Son of Prisoner 084467, Adalia Comf, imprisoned thirty-six hours for grand theft.”
Sweat traced down Rone’s spine. She didn’t do it!
He wanted to shout, to scream, to object. To turn himself in.
He said nothing.
“Let him in,” the voice within said. The guard pushed it open and gestured for Rone to enter.
He tried to hide his surprise that the person behind the large desk was a woman.
“Sit down, Mr. Comf,” she said. She didn’t tilt her head or gesture to the single chair across from her, but Rone sat in it regardless. He pressed his fists against his thighs and stared at the warden. She was in her late forties, he guessed, and overweight like the clerk. Her skin was horribly pale, likely from sitting inside this awful place day after day. Her dark hair was pulled tightly back from her forehead and knotted behind her head. She had sad, tilted eyes and a too-wide mouth. Her voice was low and unfeeling.
So was Rone’s.
“I believe my mother is being unjustly punished. Her persecutor’s name is Ernst Renad—”
“Yes, I know Renad.” She glanced at a ledger on her desk, uninterested.
Rone’s pulse thumped in his right temple. “Are you neighbors, or is he just a financial contributor to this institution?” He swallowed the venom leaking into the polite accusation.
The warden looked back, her wide lips twitching. Did she find this funny? “He’s a financial contributor. I always ensure our contributors are well taken care of, Mr. Comf. Now, is there a purpose to your visit here? You’re aware you will not be allowed into the cells after this.” She leaned back in her chair. “But you look like someone who’s read the charter, hm?”
Rone scowled. “I’m hoping to take over Renad’s payments.” He pulled the cash out of his pocket and set it on the desk. “I’m hoping to convince you to actually follow the law.”
The warden dropped her gaze to the money and laughed. Laughed. “A sweet attempt, my boy, but you’re a guppy playing with sharks.” She reached out long-nailed fingers and pushed the money back toward him. “Increase it by a dozenfold, and maybe I’ll listen to your complaints. Of course, you’ve already used up your visitor rights, haven’t you?”
Fire lit inside him. His hand slammed down on the cash, and he leaned forward. “You’re right. I’ve read the charter. I’ve studied the whole damn constitution. I can recite verbatim every law you’re breaking, and if you think I won’t—”
Her laughter cut him short. It echoed off the walls like the cries of a whipped cat, high pitched and raw.
His fingers crumpled the money into a tight wad against his palm.
Once the warden caught her breath, she said, “So can I. So can I. Oh, dearie, do you know how many sweet young men and women—cute, educated ones like yourself—have tried to use threats to bow this establishment to their will? Do you think the scarlets care what happens within these walls? They keep our cells full so there won’t be any vacant spots left for them. Do you think the triumvirate cares who did what, or what the consequences are? I take care of the riffraff so they don’t have to. So they can keep the country running smoothly and live their dreamy little lives.”
She folded her hands on the desk and leaned in close. “As far as they’re concerned, you and your dear mother—all these prisoners and all these families—don’t exist. You’re all cockroaches to them, don’t you see? Every last one. Why would they bat an eye at which ones get stepped on?
“But I care, darling. I care about the big ones. Bugs like Ernst Renad, who soothes his ego by throwing around more money than your small mind could ever dream of.” She smiled. “Try again if you gather the means.”
Rone’s fingers reached for the amarinth, tightening on its coils. Sixty seconds. Sixty seconds to put her in her place, to wipe that smirk off her mouth, to show her— “I did it.”
She cocked an eyebrow.
Rone licked his lips, finding a crack in them. His muscles tensed. He thought he could hear the darkness from the hollow chambers beneath his feet beckoning to him.
His mother was down there.
“I did it,” he repeated. The ribbons of the amarinth threatened to cut into his fingers. “It wasn’t my mother. I’m the one who broke into Ernst Renad’s home and stole the headpiece.”
She smiled. “Isn’t that sweet?”
Rone only managed to half swallow his replying growl. “You think I’m trying to cover for her? I’ll tell you the exact route I took. The layout of his house. Which walls his gilded mirrors hang on, and the color of the wood stain on his harp.”
His heart paused its beating for a moment, making him feel stiff and cold. Was he really doing this? Condemning himself to rot and die in Gerech?
But this was his fault. His mother deserved freedom. And Sandis . . . she would have to fend for herself.
The warden shrugged. “Whether you did or you didn’t, the quota is full, and it would be a headache to re-sort the paperwork for this.”