"Attia" Finn growled, but Claudia said sharply, "Let her speak."
"Back there in the Sapient's tower we found lists of all the Prisoners who have ever been in this place. They all looked for their own names, but I didn't." Attia came close to
Claudia. "I looked for yours."
Finn turned, chilled. "You said it wasn't there."
"I said she wasn't in Incarceron. But she has been."
He felt so cold. Looking at Claudia, he saw her face was white; it was Jared who said quietly, "When?"
"She was born here, and she lived here for one week. Then, nothing. She vanishes from the records. Someone took a week-old baby girl out of the Prison, and there she is, look, the daughter of the Warden. He must have been very desperate for a daughter. And there must have been one who died, or he would have chosen a son."
Keiro said, "You recognize her from a photo of a baby? That's—"
"Not just a baby." Attia kept her eyes on Claudia. "Someone put paintings of her into the book. Images, just like us. Of her growing up. Of her having everything she wanted, clothes, toys, horses. Of her ..."
"Getting betrothed?" Keiro said slyly.
Finn turned with a gasp. "Was I there? Was I in that image too? Attia!"
Her lips set. "No."
"Are you sure?"
"I'd tell you if you were." She turned earnestly. "I would tell you, Finn. It was just her."
He looked at Claudia. She seemed stunned with shock. He glanced at Jared, who muttered, 'T have also found the name of Sapphique here. It seems he truly did Escape."
Gildas spun around and the two Sapienti exchanged glances. "You see what this means."
The old man was triumphant. He was bleeding and limping, but his whole body was charged with energy. "They took her out. Sapphique got out. There is a way. Perhaps if we brought both the Keys together, we could unlock it."
Jared frowned. "Claudia?" he said.
She couldn't move for a moment. Then her head jerked up and she looked Finn hard in the eyes and he saw her gaze was fierce and bitter. "Keep the Key switched on, all the time," she said. "When I get Inside, I'll need to find you."
30
All my years to this moment
All my roads to this wall.
All my words to this silence
All my pride to this fall
She paced the study floor anxiously, dressed in dark trousers and jacket. "Well?"
"Five minutes." Jared worked on the controls without looking up. He had already placed a handkerchief on the chair and operated the device; the handkerchief had disappeared, but he couldn't get it back.
Claudia stared at the door.
She had torn up her wedding dress in a fury that had amazed even herself, shredding the lace and ripping the flouncy skirt wide open. All that was over. Protocol was over. She was at war now. Racing down here through the dark cellars, she had run through anger and bewilderment and the emptiness of a wasted past.
"All right." Jared looked up. "I think I understand what's what, but where this machine will take you, Claudia ...?"
"I know where it takes me. Away from him." The knowledge that he was not her father still rang in her head like a great blare of sound, endlessly echoing, so that she felt she would never hear anything else but that girl's quiet, devastating words. Jared said, "Sit in the chair."
She grabbed her sword and walked over and stopped. "What about you? When he finds out..
"Don't worry about me." He took her arm gently and made her sit. "It's about time I stood up to your father. I'm sure it will be good for me."
Her face clouded. "Master ... if he hurts you ..."
"All you need to worry about is finding Giles and bringing him back. Justice must be done.
Good luck, Claudia." He raised her hand and kissed it formally. For a moment she was stricken with the thought that she would never see him again; all she wanted to do was jump up and hug him, but he moved away to the panel of instruments and looked up.
"Ready?"
She couldn't speak. She nodded. And then, just before his fingers touched the panel, she said hurriedly, "Good-bye, Master."
He pressed the blue square, and it happened. From the ceiling slots a cage of white light fell, so blindingly brilliant and so quick that it was gone as soon as it had come, and all he could see was the black aftermath imprinted on his retina.
He brought his hands away from his face.
The room was empty. He could smell a faint sweetness.
"Claudia?" he whispered.
Nothing. For a long moment he waited in the silence. He wanted to stay, but he had to get out of the study; the Warden must not know what had happened for as long as possible, and if they found him here ... Hurriedly he slammed the controls back, slid out through the great bronze door, and locked it behind him.
All the way up through the cellars Jared sweated with fear. There must be some alarm he had overlooked, some screaming trigger his scanner had failed to detect. At every step he expected to hurtle into the Warden or a posse of Palace guards, and by the time he came up to the formal corridors, he was pale and shivering and had to lean in an alcove and take deep, careful breaths, a passing maid staring at him curiously.
In the Great Hall, the crowd's noise was louder. As he threaded among them he sensed the growing tension, the expectation heightened almost to hysteria. The staircase that
Claudia should descend was in full view, lined by footmen in powdered wigs. As he slipped into a seat by the fireplace he saw the Queen, glorious in cloth of gold and a tiara of diamonds, flicker an irritated glance at it.
But brides were always late.
Jared leaned back and stretched out his legs. He was lightheaded with fear and fatigue and yet he felt something else that surprised him: a strange peace. He wondered how long it would last.
Then he saw the Warden.
Tall and grave, the man who was not Claudia's father. Jared watched as the Warden smiled, nodded, exchanged graceful small talk with the waiting courtiers. Once he took out his watch and glanced at it, held it to his ear as if in all the hubbub he needed to check it was going. Then he put it away and frowned.
Impatience grew, slowly.
The crowd murmured. Caspar came over and said something to his mother, she spoke to him sharply, and he went back to his supporters. Jared watched the Queen.
Her hair was swept up elaborately, her lips red in the whitened pallor of her face, but her eyes were cool and shrewd and he recognized the growing suspicion in them.
She crooked a finger and the Warden moved to her side. They spoke briefly. A servant was called, a smooth silver-haired steward, and he bowed and vanished discreetly.
Jared rubbed his face.
It must be panic up there in her rooms, the maids searching for her, fingering the dress, terrified for their own skins. Probably they had all fled. He hoped Alys wouldn't be there-the old nurse would be blamed.
He leaned back against the wall and tried to summon up all his courage.
He didn't have long to wait.
There was a disturbance on the stairs. Heads turned. Women craned to see, a rustle of dresses and faint applause that petered out into bewilderment, because the silver-haired servant was racing down, breathless, and in his hands he had the dress, or rather what was left of it.