The floor of Holding Cell Three was cut from cold, crystal-clear dark rock that drew the heat out of Ivara Quill’s knees through her thin wool skirt. She sat on the edge of the unpainted pine cot, her back resting against the damp plaster of the rear wall, her sprained right wrist locked still by the tight linen bandage that Corve had tied before locking the door. The swelling in her wrist throbbed with a heavy, rhythmic ache that seemed to pulse in time with the low sixty-cycle hum shaking through the bedrock.
Her pinned left sleeve hung flat and empty against the wool of her vest, pinned securely with three iron land-mapper’s pins. The room was six paces across by four paces deep, lit up only by the faint, filtered violet slow leak that leaked through the heavy brass angled slats near the ceiling vault. The light was the color of bruised plums, washing over the whitewashed stone with a cold, sickly radiance that turned the sweat on her forehead into gray drops. In the corner stood a chipped baked-clay bowl containing a half-inch of stale water, and beside it lay a wooden spoon that she had whittled down to a fine point against the floor flags to pass the hours of the night.
