“How long have you been in here?”
The scraping continued, and Kelsea sighed. Some of these people had undoubtedly been imprisoned for years, long past the time when they would have retained any interest in the world outside their cells. But she could not shake her own sense of urgency. The Tearling was safe, she told herself, safe for the three years she had purchased, so what did it matter if she rotted in here? Vague thoughts of William Tear flitted through her head, images of his utopia, his Town, already beginning to rot from the inside. But that would happen whether Kelsea was locked up or not. The past in her head could be seen, but it could not be changed.
Why not?
Kelsea jumped, but before she could continue the thought, her ears caught a faraway sound: boot heels, more than one set, coming down the hallway on her right. As they came closer, the scratching sound against the wall ceased. The heels descended two small sets of steps—staircases, as yet unseen, at the far end of the corridor. Somehow, Kelsea knew they were coming for her, and she scrambled to her feet, so that when the torchlight came around the corner it found her standing proud and straight inside her cell.
There were two of them. One was Kelsea’s jailor, his eyes as mindlessly jolly as before, holding a torch, and the other was a woman, well dressed in blue velvet. She was very tall of frame, with sharp eyes and the extra consideration of movement that told Kelsea she’d been trained somehow, perhaps in combat. Kelsea cast back and found a nugget of information told to her by Mace, long ago: the Red Queen’s pages had to know how to handle themselves.
“She’s filthy,” the woman remarked in badly accented Mort. “Did you not wash her up?”
The jailor shook his head, and Kelsea was pleased to see him looking slightly embarrassed.
“When did she last eat?”
“Yesterday, I think.”
“You’re a joy to your profession, aren’t you?”
The jailor gave her a befuddled look, and that was when Kelsea knew that it was all an act. There was something wrong with her jailor, deeply and fundamentally wrong, but he wasn’t stupid.
“Give me that!” the woman snapped, grabbing the torch and holding it high, her narrowed eyes locked on Kelsea’s face. “This woman has been beaten.”
The jailor shrugged, staring at the ground. “She was disorderly.”
“This is a high-value prisoner. An underjailor does not lay fingers on her except to save her life. Do you understand?”
The jailor nodded sullenly, a low gleam of anger in his eyes. But the anger itself did not frighten Kelsea nearly as much as how quickly he hid it, there and then gone, tucked neatly from sight.
“Bind her hands and bring her up to the third floor,” the woman ordered.
The jailor unlocked the cell, and Kelsea tensed as the woman disappeared around the corner.
“Pretty is special,” the jailor muttered to himself. “But not special to them like she is to me. Pretty is mine.”
Kelsea’s lip curled in disgust. It seemed the safest time to correct this particular misconception, since he could hardly beat her again without incurring the wrath of the woman in blue. She spoke carefully in Mort, enunciating every word.
“I belong to no one but myself.”
“No, no, they would not have locked pretty up if she wasn’t meant for me, all my own.”
Kelsea resisted an overpowering urge to kick him in the kneecap. She had seen Mace demonstrate the maneuver, one of the most painful wounds an unarmed man could inflict: right on the dome of the knee, shattering the bones into so many fragments. Kelsea had no magic these days, only her own force to work with, but she thought she could do it, and hearing this man howl in agony suddenly seemed the loveliest idea in the world. But there would be nowhere to go afterward.
“Hands,” the man demanded, putting the torch in its holder. Kelsea held them out and allowed him to place manacles around her wrists.
“Pretty does not move quickly enough.”
“Perhaps not,” Kelsea replied. “But before pretty leaves this dungeon, she is going to deal with you. Know that for a certainty.”
The man looked up, startled. “Nonsense. She is only a prisoner.”
“No. She is a queen.”
“Yes.” The man finished locking her manacles and ran his palm over her hair. There were certainly worse places he could have chosen to touch, but the possessiveness in the gesture made Kelsea’s skin crawl. “My very own queen.”
She rolled her eyes, sickened. “Christ, let’s go.”
“Women shouldn’t curse.”
“Get fucked.”
He blinked in surprise, but did not react, only took her arm and led her out of the dungeon. Kelsea would have given the world and all of its riches for her sapphires in that moment. Just the tiniest push with her mind, and the jailor would die screaming. She could make it last for days if she wanted to.