Hado humphed a little, pressing the back of his hand to my forehead. “Is the other one prepared? I’m not keen on wrestling him into submission.”
“If you like, my men can bring him to you later.” I could actually hear Rimarn’s frosty smile. “We would make certain he is sufficiently subdued.”
“Thank you, but no. I have orders, and no time.” A hand took my good arm and pulled me up. “Can you walk, Lady Oree?”
“Where…” I couldn’t catch my breath. Fear ate at my thoughts, but I was more confused by the conversation. Was Rimarn turning me over to the Lights? Since when had the Order of Itempas been subservient to some cult? Nothing here made sense. “Where are you taking me?”
He ignored my question and pulled me along, and I had no choice but to shuffle at his side. He had to go slow, as it was the best pace I could do. Outside the little room, we were joined by two other men, one of whom grabbed my injured arm before I could evade him. I screamed, and Hado cursed.
“Look at her, you fool. Be more careful.” With that, the man let me go, though his companion kept a grip on my good arm. Without that, I might not have remained standing.
“I will take her,” said Shiny, and I blinked, realizing I had grayed out again. Then someone lifted me in strong arms, and I felt warm all over like I’d been sitting in a patch of sun, and though I should not have felt safe at all, I did. So I slept again.
Waking, this time, was very different.
It took a long time, for one thing. I was very conscious of this as my mind moved from the stillness of sleep to the alertness of waking, yet my body did not keep up. I lay there, aware of silence and warmth and comfort, able to recall what had happened to me in a distant, careless sort of way, but unable to move. This did not feel restrictive or alarming. Just strange. So I drifted, no longer tired, but helpless while my flesh insisted upon waking in its own good time.
Eventually, however, I did succeed in drawing a deeper breath. This startled me because it did not hurt. The ache that had been deepening in one side where I thought the ribs were cracked was gone. So surprising was this that I drew another breath, moved my leg a little, and finally opened my eyes.
I could see.
Light surrounded me on all sides. The walls, the ceiling. I turned my head: the floor, too. All of it shone, some strange, hard material like polished stone or marble, but it glowed bright and white with its own inner magic.
I turned my head. (More surprise there: this did not hurt, either.) An enormous window, floor to very high ceiling, dominated one wall. I could not see beyond it, but the glass shimmered faintly. The furniture around the room—a dresser, two huge chairs, and an altar for worship in the corner—did not glow. I could see them only as dark outlines, silhouetted by the white of the walls and floor. I supposed not everything could be magic here. The bed that I lay on was dark, a negative shape against the pale floor. And threading up and down through the walls at random were long patches of darker material that looked like nothing I had ever seen before. This material glowed, too, in a faint green that was somehow familiar. Magic of a different sort.
“You’re awake,” said Hado from one of the chairs. I started, because I had not noticed the silhouette of legs against the floor.
He rose and came over, and as he did, I noticed something else strange. Though the other nonmagical objects in the room were dark to my vision, Hado was darker. It was a subtle thing, noticeable only when he moved past something that should have been equally shadowed.
Then he bent over me, reaching for my forehead, and I remembered that he was one of the people who had killed Madding. I slapped his hand away.
He paused, then chuckled. “And I see you’re feeling stronger. Well, then. If you’ll get up and get dressed, Lady, you have an appointment with someone very important. If you’re polite—and lucky—he may even answer your questions.”
I sat up, frowning, and only belatedly realized my arm was encumbered. I examined it and found that the upper arm had been set and splinted with two long metal rods, which had then been bound tightly in place with bandages. It still hurt, I found when I tried to bend it; this triggered a deep, spreading ache through the muscles. But it was infinitely better than it had been.
“How long have I been here?” I asked, dreading the answer. I was clean. Even the blood that had been crusted under my nails was gone. Someone had bound my hair back in a single neat braid. There was no bandaging on my ribs or head; those injuries were completely healed.
That took days. Weeks.
“You were brought here yesterday,” Hado said. He set clothing on my lap. I touched it and knew at once that it was not the usual New Light smock. The material under my fingers was something much finer and softer. “Most of your injuries were easily treated, but your arm will require a few more days. Don’t disturb the script.”
“Script?” But now I saw it as I lifted the sleeve of the nightgown I wore. Wrapped into the bindings was a small square of paper, on which had been drawn three interlinked sigils. The characters glowed against my silhouette, working whatever magic they did just by existing.
Bonebenders might use the odd sigil, generally the most commonly known or simple to draw, but never whole scripts. Anything this complex and intricate was scriveners’ work—the kind that cost a fortune.
“What is this, Hado?” I turned my head to follow him as he went over to a window. Now that I knew to look for that distinctive darkness, he was easy to see. “This isn’t the House of the Risen Sun. What’s going on? And you—what the hells are you?”
“I believe the common term is spy, Lady Oree.”
That hadn’t been what I’d meant, but it distracted me. “Spy? You?”
He uttered a soft, humorless laugh. “The secret to being an effective spy, Lady Oree, is to believe in your role and never step out of character.” He shrugged. “You may not like me for it, but I did what I could to keep you and your friends alive.”
My hands tightened on the sheets as I thought of Madding. “You didn’t do a very good job of it.”
“I did an excellent job of it, all things considered, but blame me for your lover’s death if it makes you feel better.” His tone said he didn’t care whether I did or not. “When you have time to think about it a little, you’ll realize Dateh would have killed him, anyhow.”
None of this made sense. I pushed back the covers and tried to get up. I was still weak; no amount of magical healing could fix that. But I was stronger than I had been, a clear sign of improvement. It took me two tries to stand, but when I did, I did not sway. As quickly as I could, I changed out of the nightgown and into the clothes he’d given me. A blouse and an elegantly long skirt, much more my usual style than the shapeless Light clothing. They fit perfectly, even the shoes. There was also a sling for my arm, which eased the lingering pain greatly once I worked out how to put it on.
“Ready?” he asked, then took my arm before I had a chance to answer. “Come, then.”
We left the room and walked through long, curving corridors, and I could see all of it. The graceful walls, the arched ceiling, the mirror-smooth floor. As we mounted a set of shallow, wide stairs, I slowed, figuring out by trial and error how to gauge height using just my eyes and not a walking stick. Once I mastered the technique, I found that I didn’t need Hado’s hand on my arm to guide me. Eventually I shook him off entirely, reveling in the novelty of making my way unassisted. All my life I had heard arcane terms like depth perception and panorama, yet never fully understood. Now I felt like a seeing person—or how I had always imagined they must feel. I could see everything, except for the man-shaped shadow that was Hado at my side and the occasional shadows of other people passing by, most of them moving briskly and not speaking. I stared at them shamelessly, even when the shadows turned their heads to stare back.