Finally, just when I think my calves are about to cramp and pitch me down into the darkness, the air seems to change. It’s fresher, carrying the tang of seawater. Another few steps and there is a flat floor in front of me. I sigh with relief and hurry forward, anxious to get out of the tunnel, whatever may be waiting at the other end. Behind me, Turik swears at Letya, ordering her to walk faster, a sharp note of hysteria in his voice.
The tunnel widens, turns, and without warning we’re in the open and it’s stony underfoot. The cool night air and the space around me make me feel as if I’ve escaped. But Siegfried plucks the torch from my hand, throws it into the water – we are by the shore of the fjord – and takes my arm, jamming the knife against my side.
‘Into the boat.’
There’s a rowing boat drawn up on the pebbles; a man is waiting next to it with a pair of oars. Letya and I are hustled into the boat and made to sit in the bottom of the hull in a puddle of dirty water. Letya is at the stern, Turik next to her on a bench, and I’m in the prow. The rower takes his seat in the middle. We wait while Siegfried strips off his clothes and replaces them with a long robe. He climbs in and sits on a wooden ledge beside me.
‘We have a pleasant night for it, now the rain has passed.’ He gestures at the cloudless sky above the Citadel, slowly receding with every oar-stroke. ‘I imagine Rookwood’s trial must be about to start. A pity I am not there, but my sister will ensure the correct outcome.’
‘I don’t understand how I ever liked you.’
‘You liked me because I’m charming, and clever, and I seemed to offer a way to get what you wanted. Which was revenge on those who killed your mother, of course. For both you and your father.’
‘You used him.’
‘We used each other. He hated his brother, and I wanted the crown. A slow, painful death for the king suited us both.’
‘That’s a lie.’ I clutch my stomach, digging my nails into my flesh to ward off the nausea that threatens to overwhelm me. ‘My father just wanted to frighten him –’
‘Is that what you’ve been telling yourself?’ Siegfried smirks at me. ‘I’m afraid not, Aderyn. It was he who sought me out. He asked me to use my access to the Citadel to poison the king. In return, he offered me your hand in marriage and the whole of Atratys. I suppose he thought I would protect you. And I would have wed you, eventually. You would have ruled Solanum at my side. But as it is, you’ve chosen to throw away everything – everything – for one night of sated lust in the arms of a –’
My fist gets halfway to his face before he blocks me.
‘I don’t think so, you flightless bitch.’ He grabs my wrist and twists my arm behind me so hard I cry out in pain. ‘Touch me again and I’ll break it.’
‘I am – not – flightless.’ I force the words out through gritted teeth.
‘You can say that as many times as you like, but it won’t make it true. Do you know who told the king you were flightless? I did. And who do you think told me? Your father. My poor, flightless daughter – that’s what he called you. He didn’t keep you locked up at Merl merely for your protection. He was embarrassed by you.’
He lets go of me, shoves me forward; I catch myself just before my face hits the dirty water in the bottom of the boat. I want to scream. To tell him he’s lying. That my father would never – never – have called me flightless, that he was a good man, not someone to plan murder. Not someone to sacrifice his only child in the name of revenge.
But the words stick in my throat.
Because obviously I didn’t know my father at all.
Siegfried chuckles. ‘It has been amusing, talking to you about my friend the chemist, knowing all along it was your father who made the poison that killed the king. Who made the potion that enabled you to fly again.’ He leans closer. ‘The potion that he gave to me, Aderyn. To me. Not to you.’
The icy water has soaked into my dress. There’s a large wooden splinter stuck in the heel of my hand. I pull it out, stare at the trickle of blood that tracks down my arm. I should be feeling cold, or pain, or both. Something. But my centre seems to have been … excised. Like someone has taken a knife and cut away whatever it is that connects my emotions to the rest of me. Cut away my heart.
‘Why haven’t you killed me?’
‘A reasonable question. And I will kill you. Or –’ he waves a hand – ‘watch you be executed, I suppose. But first, you’re going to write a confession. You’re going to tell Convocation that it was you – and your father, and your servants – who planned to murder the king and take the crown. The queen will suggest, as a reward for unveiling this plot, that Atratys should be annexed to Olorys. Your family shield will be disgraced and struck from the records. But you’ll be dead, of course. You probably won’t care.’
I’m about to give in. To tell him that I’ll write whatever he wants, say whatever he wants, if he at least allows Letya to live.
But then he adds: ‘I’ve never been to an execution for high treason. Apparently, they’re going to bind poor Lucien by his wrists and ankles to one of the posts in the arena and flog him. Then, once the skin is bloodied, they’ll place borer worms into the lacerations.’
I clamp my hand to my mouth as my stomach heaves.
Still Siegfried continues. ‘Curious creatures, borer worms. From northern Fenian. They live by feeding on wounded animals. The scent of blood prompts them to produce an acid, which, in combination with several rows of very sharp teeth, enables them to eat through skin, muscle, bone … But they move slowly. It’s a lingering, agonising, humiliating death.’ He sighs. ‘I would have so enjoyed making you watch Rookwood die.’
The fire flares in my belly. Maybe I can’t feel anything else, but I can still feel rage.
‘Go to hell. And rot there. I’m not signing anything.’
My captor merely smiles. The boat bumps against something solid, and as the oarsman jumps out to tie it up I look around. We’re at the tower that stands out in the fjord. Siegfried drags me upright and we clamber up out of the boat onto the rocks that form the base of the tower. There’s a small door. Once Turik and Letya have joined us, Siegfried opens it.
It’s like our journey down the staircase behind the painting, but in reverse. Again, Siegfried forces me to carry a torch. Again – apart from the small area illuminated by its flames – we are plunged into gloom. But this time we have to climb upward, circling round the inside of the tower. There are windows, but only at the top; looking up, I can’t see any glimmer of light. The darkness sucks at my eyeballs. The stairs are steep and uncomfortably deep. Turik soon starts panting. Every so often I slow down too much, and Siegfried yells at me. But I can’t help it. I’m so tired; all I’m aware of is the ache in my lungs and the throbbing pain in my injured hand.
Past the point where I feel like I can’t take another step, I have to keep climbing. Until finally the staircase ends. There’s a door in front of me. It’s fastened with a padlock and three heavy wooden bars and can clearly only be opened from the outside.
This place is a prison.
Siegfried puts the torch in a bracket and unlocks the door. But the space beyond is not what I was expecting. There’s a broken chair to one side. Nothing else. Just thick dust and cobwebs and ten wooden pillars, supporting the beams that make up the roof. The only windows are high up in the walls, just beneath the roof beams: narrow glazed panels, half opaque with dirt, half smashed. I can hear the scream of the wind and the sea beating against the rocks below. Turik binds Letya to the pillar nearest the door. When he is done, Siegfried waves him away.