“Elston, don’t you dare.”
“Let us have him, Lady!” Elston replied eagerly, moving forward and pulling the keys from his belt. “Please, I beg you!”
“Sit down, Elston! And you, Lazarus, enough. This man will die in front of the people he’s wronged. Not you.”
Mace had started forward again, but now he stopped. “You will execute him?”
“Yes. I’ve decided. Next Sunday, in the circus.”
“Thorne has wronged me, Lady,” Elston said quietly. “My grievance is as good as any in the Tearling. Let me be the one.”
“Good Christ, grow up!” Thorne snapped. “It was an accident. I’d no idea what you were. Twenty years later, and you still can’t move on with your life!”
“You flesh-peddling—”
“Enough!” Kelsea shouted, losing patience. “Out of here now! Everyone but Pen!”
“Lady—”
“Out, Lazarus!”
Mace had the good grace to look a bit ashamed as he departed, taking Elston and Coryn with him. The door closed with a thump.
“Thank God for small favors,” Thorne muttered. He collapsed into the chair, tipped his head back, and closed his eyes.
Kelsea was disturbed. The conversation had taken a sharp turn into uncharted territory. Mace had given her the impression that the albino was an odd remnant of Thorne’s past, a fetish that he carried around with him like a good-luck charm. But unless Thorne was playing some deeper game here—and Kelsea couldn’t imagine what it might be—what she was seeing now was a wholly altruistic act, one that did not accord with Arlen Thorne at all.
“Where did you grow up, Arlen?”
“You will execute me next Sunday, Majesty. I don’t owe you a biography.”
“Perhaps not. But if something terrible was truly done to you as a child, perhaps I could prevent it from happening to others.”
“What happens to others is their own concern. I only care what happens to Brenna.”
Kelsea sighed. The altruism, if that was what it was, would clearly extend no further. “Assuming that I like what you’re selling, what is it that you want me to do with her?”
“I want a place for Brenna here.”
“In the Keep?” Kelsea asked incredulously.
“There’s nowhere else she would be safe, Majesty. You cannot hide her; she’s too recognizable. I want her in a safe structure, decently fed and clothed, and protected by a loyal guard who cannot be suborned with bribes.”
“Even the most loyal guard can be turned, Arlen. You destroyed one of mine.”
“Morphia destroyed Mhurn, Lady, just as it has destroyed so many fools who try to hide from the here and now. I am merely the man who found the corpse, dusted it off, and made of it what I could.”
“God, you’re cold, Arlen.”
“So I’m told, Majesty. But the fact remains that only a fool blames the dealer.”
Kelsea took a deep breath and blanked all thoughts of Mhurn out of her mind. “What makes you think Brenna would accept my protection? She doesn’t seem to care for me much.”
“An understatement, Lady, I’m sure. But she will accept.”
“And what do you offer in return?”
“A bargaining chip against the Red Queen.”
Kelsea eyed him skeptically.
“Ours has been a long acquaintance, Majesty. No one knows the Red Queen well, but I venture to say I know her better than most men who live to tell the tale.”
“Is your bargaining chip one that would turn her away from us, send her army home?”
“No, Majesty. If it were, we would be dickering for my life as well as Brenna’s.”
“If your information won’t save the Tearling, then what do I care?”
“Only you can say, Lady.” Thorne shrugged. “But I myself have never regretted acquiring a piece of leverage. Such things often come in handy when we least expect it.”
Kelsea winced, feeling herself maneuvered. This man was a liar, one of the best in the Tear … and yet she believed him. He seemed resigned to his fate. And in the scheme of things, what he asked was very small.
“I don’t break my word, Majesty, and I’ve heard tell that you don’t either.” Thorne’s bright blue eyes glimmered through the bars of the age. “I’m not trying to cheat you. An honest bargain: the safety and care of my Brenna for a good piece of information. Do you accept?”
Dealing with the devil, Kelsea thought. She should call Mace in here, get his opinion. But somehow this seemed like a decision that should belong to her alone. She considered for a moment longer, then sighed and nodded. “We have a bargain, Arlen.”
Thorne offered a hand through the bars for her to shake, but Kelsea shook her head. “Not a chance. What’s your information?”
“Your two sapphires, Majesty. She wants them, more than you can possibly imagine.”
“These?” Kelsea looked down, but her hand had already gone instinctively to clutch the sapphires, and now they were hidden from view. “Why didn’t she simply demand them from my mother as part of the Treaty? She could have done so.”
“I don’t think she wanted them so badly in those days, Majesty. At any rate, she wanted slaves more. But she and I have had a long and fruitful business relationship, and while you were in hiding, I saw her longing for those jewels grow like a fever. She was just as desperate for news of them as she was for your head, and each year that your uncle failed to lay hold of them, she held him in more contempt.”
“What does she want with them, exactly?”
“She never told me, Majesty.”
“Care to hazard a guess?”
Thorne shrugged. “She’s a woman terrified of dying, of ceasing to exist. I noticed it often, though it’s a quality she tries desperately to hide. Perhaps your jewels would help?”
Kelsea’s mind went immediately to Kibb, lying on the sickbed covered in sweat. She thought of Row Finn’s offer: a way to destroy the Red Queen. Mace said it had been years since anyone had tried to assassinate her; everyone assumed it could not be done. Was it possible that the Red Queen was still physically vulnerable somehow? But even if Row Finn knew of that vulnerability, what good could such information do Kelsea now? An army of at least fifteen thousand lay between New London and Demesne.
“But this is conjecture, Majesty,” Thorne continued. “The Mort have designated her un maniaque … what we would call a control freak. You, your sapphires, these things are variables, and the Red Queen is not a woman who is comfortable with variables, not even pleasant ones.”
Kelsea stared at him, fascinated and disgusted at the same time. “Did you sleep with her, Arlen?”
“She wished me to. She sleeps with a man, and then feels that he is hers, neatly categorized and collected. But I am part of no one’s collection.”
Thorne stood up and stretched. His arms were so long that he nearly reached the top of the cage. “Why delay my execution until Sunday, Majesty? I’m tired of waiting, and I’m certainly tired of Elston’s company. Why not simply do it now?”
“Because even in death, Arlen, you will be useful. Your execution will be a public event, and announcements will go out to all corners of the kingdom. The people want this, and I will give it to them.”
“Ah, the pleasure of the mob. It’s a wise move, I suppose.”
“You don’t fear death?”
Thorne shrugged. “Do you play chess, Majesty?”
“Yes, but not well.”
“I play a great deal of chess, and I play well. I don’t often lose, but it has happened. Always in such games, there is a point at which you realize you will be bested, that checkmate is four or ten or twelve moves away. One school of thought says you should make the best endgame you can, fighting until the bitter finish. But I have never seen any point in that. I have done the math, and I was checkmated from the moment your people grabbed my Brenna. All moves since then have been the pointless scurrying of pawns.”
“What is Brenna to you?” Kelsea asked. “Why does she mean so much, when all other people mean nothing?”