The iron door of Cell Four had been locked with three separate turns of the key. But the sound that stayed in Ren Vale’s ears was not the tumble of brass pins. It was the whisper of Mira’s needle breaking against stone.
Across the narrow hall, behind the lead-sheathed bars of Cell Five, Mira had returned to her straw pallet. She had wrapped her charcoal shawl tightly around her chest. She tucked her rigid smoky quartz arm close against her ribs. She wasn’t crying. Mira never cried when court guards or judges were watching. She hoarded her tears the way an apothecary hoarded dried aconite. That kept them sealed where no creditor could use them as collateral.
“You should have taken the coat, Ren,” she murmured across the flat stone slabs. Her breath gave off that faint, clear chime of struck crystal. “A velvet mantle would have suited you. You could have worn silver buckles on your shoes and complained about the soup like a proper gentleman.”
Ren sat on the cold floor, his back braced against the granite blocks. His wrists throbbed inside the heavy iron manacles. The purple-black streaks of Ink-Rot along his forearms felt like smoldering animal fat, the iron-gall residue searing his tiny blood vessels with every beat of his exhausted heart.
