Her father took her hand and raised her to her feet. "My dear. So where is our young
Prince?"
Jared was watching the bronze gate buckle inward. He flashed a quick, glad glance at
Claudia.
Her hair was tangled, her face dirty. A strange smell hung around her. She said, "Right behind me."
FINN WAS sitting in a chair too, but this room was dark, a small cell, like the one he remembered from long ago, ancient, the walls greasy with carved names.
Opposite him sat a slim dark-haired man. For a moment he thought this was Jared, and then he knew who it was.
He looked around, confused. "Where am I? Is this Outside?"
Sapphique was sitting against the wall, knees drawn up. He said quietly, "None of us have much idea where we are. Perhaps all our lives we are too concerned with where, and not enough with who."
Finn's fingers were tight on the crystal Key. "Let me go," he breathed.
"It's not me who's stopping you." Sapphique watched Finn and his eyes were dark and the stars were points of light deep inside them. "Don't forget us, Finn. Don't forget the ones back there in the dark, the hungry and the broken, the murderers and thugs. There are prisons within prisons, and they inhabit the deepest."
He stretched out his hand and took a length of chain from the wall; it clanked, rust flaking off. He slipped his hands inside the links. "Like you, I went out into the Realm. It wasn't what I'd expected. And I made a promise too." He dropped the metal on the floor, an enormous crash, and Finn saw the maimed finger. "Maybe that's what's imprisoning you."
He turned sideways and beckoned. A shadow rose from behind him and walked forward, and Finn stifled a cry, because it was the Maestra. She had the same tall, lanky walk, the red hair, the scornful eyes. She stood looking down at Finn and he felt that a chain bound him, fine and invisible and she held the end of it, because he could not move hand or foot.
"How can you be here?" he whispered. "You fell."
"Oh yes, I fell! Through realms and centuries. Like a bird with a broken wing. Like an angel cast down." He could barely tell if it was her whisper or Sapphique's. But the anger was hers. "And that was all your fault."
"I ..." He wanted to blame Keiro, or Jormanric. Anyone. But he said, "I know."
"Remember it, Prince. Learn from it."
"Are you alive?" He was struck with the old shame; it made it hard to speak.
"Incarceron doesn't waste anything. I'm alive in its depths, in its cells, the cells of its body."
I'm sorry.
She wrapped her coat about her with the old dignity. "If you are, that's all I ask."
"Will you keep him here?" Sapphique murmured.
"As he kept me?" She laughed calmly. "I don't need a ransom for my forgiveness. Goodbye, scared boy. Guard my crystal Key."
The cell blurred and opened. He felt as if he were dragged through a blinding concussion of stone and flesh; that huge wheels of iron rumbled over him, that he was opened and closed, riven and mended.
He stood up from the chair and the dark figure held out a hand to steady him.
And this time it was Jared.
35
I have walked a stair of swords, I have worn a coat of scars.
I have vowed with hollow words, I have lied my way to the stars.
The gate shuddered.
"Don't worry. It will never break." Calm, the Warden surveyed Finn. "So this is the one you think is Giles." She glared at him. "You should know." Finn stared around. The room was so white it hurt, the glare of the lights making his eyes ache. The man he recognized as
Blaize laughed lightly, folding his arms. "Actually, it doesn't matter whether he is or not.
Now you have him, you will have to make him Giles. Because only he stands between you and disaster." Curious, he stepped closer to Finn. "And what do you think, Prisoner? Who do you think you are?"
Finn felt shaky and filthy; suddenly he knew that his skin was grimed with dirt, that he stank in this sterile room. "I ... think I remember. The betrothal..
"Are you sure? Or might it not be that these are memories someone else had, that are now buried in you, filaments of thought trapped in borrowed tissue, that the Prison built into you?" He smiled his cold smile.
"Once we could have found out," Claudia snapped. "Before Protocol."
"Yes." The Warden turned to her. "And that problem I will leave to you."
Finn saw how pale she was, how angry. She said, "All my life you let me believe I was your daughter. And it was all a lie."
"No."
"Yes! You selected me, you educated me, you formed me ... you even told me all that!
Created a creature that would be just what you wanted, that would be pliant and marry whom you said and be what you wanted. What would have happened to me afterward?
Would poor Queen Claudia have met with an accident too, leaving only the Warden to be
Regent? Was that the plan?"
He met her eyes, and his were clear and gray. "If it was, I changed it because I grew to love you." "Liar!"
Jared said unhappily, "Claudia, I ..." but the Warden held up his hand.
"No Master, let me explain. I chose you, yes, and I freely admit at first you were a means to an end. A squalling infant that I saw as rarely as possible. But as you grew, I came ... to look forward to seeing you. To the way you curtsied to me, showed me your work, were shy with me. And you have become dear to me."
She stared at him, not wanting to hear this, or believe it. She wanted to keep her anger bright, newly minted like a coin.
He shrugged. "I was not a good father. For that I am sorry."
In the stillness between them the hammering broke out again, even louder. Jared said urgently, "It hardly matters, sir, what you did or who this boy is. We are all condemned now. There is no escape from death unless we all enter the Prison."
Finn muttered, "I have to go back for Attia." He held out his hand to Claudia for the other
Key; she shook her head. "Not you. I'll go back." Reaching out, she took the crystal copy from him and compared the two. "Who made this?"
"Lord Calliston. The Steel Wolf himself." The Warden stared at the crystal. "I had often wondered if the rumors were true, whether a copy existed, somewhere in the depths of the Prison."
She moved her finger toward the panel, but he stopped her. "Wait. First we must ensure our own safety, or the girl will be better where she is."
Claudia looked at him. "How can I ever trust you again?"
"You must." He put a finger to his lips and nodded. Then, striding across the white cell, he touched the door control and stood back.
Two soldiers fell headlong into the room. Behind them, the ram on chains swung at empty air. Swords were drawn, sharp whispers of steel.
"Do please enter," the Warden said graciously.
The Queen herself was there, Claudia saw with shock, wearing a dark cloak. Behind his mother Caspar glared at her. 'I'll never forgive you," he snarled.
"Be quiet." His mother stalked past him into the room, paused at the strange shiver of energy at the threshold, then gazed around. "Fascinating. So this is the Portal."
"Indeed." The Warden bowed. "I am happy to see you so well."
"I very much doubt that." Sia stopped before Finn. She looked him up and down and her face paled. She pressed her red lips tight.