“What is that?”
“My armories,” the Red Queen replied tonelessly. “Always, these rebels are able to get past my soldiers. The precious few that are left, anyway. More of my army desert to join this Tear lunatic every day.”
“Levieux?”
“You know the name?”
“I have heard it,” Kelsea replied carefully.
“Why would a Tear want to do this to me?”
Kelsea turned to face her and realized, astonished, that the Red Queen was serious. “You invaded our country.”
“I withdrew.”
“This time, yes. The last time, your pet general left a trail of rape and slaughter. And even if any Tear could forget that, they would not forget seventeen years of the shipment.”
The Red Queen shook her head. “Populations are pawns, Glynn. It is but the movement of pieces.”
“Surely you know that people don’t think of themselves that way?” But a moment later, Kelsea wondered if the Red Queen did know it. She had spent more than a century disconnected from her own populace. The beginnings of sympathy that had been stirring in Kelsea’s mind faded and disappeared.
“People don’t think of themselves as pawns. The suffering wreaked by the shipment—relatives divided, spouses taken from each other, children torn from parents—do you think anyone can forget?”
“They will.”
“No,” Kelsea replied firmly. “They won’t.”
“People have been trafficked since the dawn of time.”
“That doesn’t make it better. It makes it worse. We should have learned something by now.”
The Red Queen stared at her for a long moment, her gaze almost wistful. “Who raised you, Glynn?”
“A good man and woman.” Kelsea felt her throat tighten, as always when she thought of Barty and Carlin. She hesitated to say their names, then realized that there was no point in keeping secrets. No one could harm them any longer. “Bartholemew and Carlin Glynn.”
“Elyssa’s tutor. I should have known.”
“Why?”
“The rigid morality. Far too rigid for Elyssa; Lady Glynn fell out of favor before you were born.” The Red Queen shook her head. “Anyway, I envy you.”
“You do?”
“Of course I do. You were raised to believe in something. Many things.”
“And you believe in nothing?”
“I believe in myself.”
Kelsea turned back to the edge. Far below, a dark tide emerged from the gates of the Palais: soldiers, heading for the inferno on the north side of Demesne. Was the fire truly the Fetch’s work? What could he possibly want with this place?
No one had connected Kelsea with the death of the jailor. There had been an uproar when he was found, a huge increase in traffic through Kelsea’s corridor, but she had not been questioned. Strass had clearly not been well liked; the furor over his death soon died down. Life in the dungeon went on as always, with Kelsea turning the strange rock over and over in her hand, trying to sort out what had happened. Her invisible fellow prisoner, the weapons designer, had lapsed back into silence.
“Why did you bring me out here?” she asked the Red Queen.
“Because we have lost contact with Cite Marche. The last three envoys I sent up the Cold Road have not returned.” The Red Queen stared at Kelsea, almost hungrily. “So what news, Glynn? What do you know of him now?”
“Not as much as you’d like.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t speed up the past. I’ve only seen the boy.”
“And what is he like?”
“Cruel,” Kelsea replied, and for a moment she was right back there with Katie, standing frozen in the industrial row of Tear’s town in the dead of night. “Spiteful.”
“What else?”
“I’m not sure.” Kelsea closed her eyes, thinking of the Town graveyard, the torn-open graves. Katie had not yet put two and two together, but then, Katie didn’t know her best friend as well as Kelsea did. “He dabbles.”
“In what?”
“The occult. I think he means to raise the dead.”
“Well, he’s figured it out now,” the Red Queen replied bitterly, gesturing toward the northeast. “Every new group of refugees arrives with some terrible tale. These children cannot be killed by swords. Only magic will reach them.”
“What do you know of him?”
“He’s a drinker of blood,” the Red Queen replied flatly.
Kelsea blinked in surprise, but said nothing.
“I used to offer him children, from the shipment, in return for his help. None of them ever came back.”
“How did you meet him?”
“I was on the run.”
“From your mother?” This much, at least, Kelsea had drawn from the woman’s mind. There was a great betrayal there, though the exact circumstances had not come clear.
“Yes. From the Cadarese as well.” The Red Queen shook her head, as a dog would shake off water. “At any rate, the dark thing gave me shelter, saved me from starvation in the Fairwitch.”
“Why would he do that?”
“He thought I could set him free.” The Red Queen grinned bleakly. “But it wasn’t me, Glynn. It was you.”
“I did what I had to do to save my kingdom.”
“Temporary salvation at best, Glynn.”