The damp in the undercroft was heavier than it had ever been.
Outside the courthouse foundation, the autumn downpour had flooded the town storm gutters. It sent thin trickles of muddy, coal-stained water weeping through the joints of the underground stonework. Ren Vale sat on his straw pallet in Cell Four, his breathing shallow, his wrists resting on his knees.
The physical strain of holding Magistrate Ren showed up through the morning face-off had sped up the Ink-Rot in his blood. His veins felt as though they were filled with crushed glass. Dark violet petechiae had spread across the skin of his chest, pulsing with rhythmic, feverish heat.
Across the hall in Cell Five, Mira was kneeling by the lead bars.
She had pushed her bowl of cold morning gruel through the gap between the uprights. But neither of them had touched it. The gruel had formed a greasy, grey skin in the damp air.
“Ren,” she whispered softly.
Ren lifted his head. His eyes were heavy, his temples throbbing with a persistent, dull migraine from the sense overlap of the Council of Ash.
“I’m awake, Mira,” he murmured.
