I feel insulted, for sure. Angry, of course. Embarrassed, just a little. What Esther said, though, overshadows everything else I feel. The tattoo is real, and I can make people hallucinate. That’s going to come in handy.
Esther huffs, thoroughly annoyed, and she stalks down the hall. Glenquartz escorts me back down into the dark corridors of the dungeon, with three of the guards in tow.
“I expect you won’t have to stay down here for long,” Glenquartz says as we walk. He’s trying to be comforting, but he’s also a little smug that he and his guards have outsmarted me. “Now that they know you are the new sovereign, the Royal Council will have to decide what to do next. If you hadn’t escaped so quickly, I might have been able to convince them to let you stay in a proper room upstairs. But if you can escape the dungeon in five minutes, I doubt our simple palace quarters would give you trouble.”
I remain silent, thinking through my next moves. They’ve reclaimed the key, and they search me more thoroughly outside the cell this time. I only have the lockpick in my pant leg. At least they’re putting me in the same cell, where the knife waits in the drain.
The cell door clicks shut, and I place my hand on the bars.
“Will you still check on Hat?” I ask Glenquartz, ignoring the other guards. “I know I was using it as an excuse to get rid of you before, but I really mean it. I’m not sure which is worse: her getting arrested or her disappearing from the streets.”
“Disappearing?” Glenquartz is puzzled, and I’m not surprised. There’s no reason he would’ve heard about Nameless kids vanishing, because no one else cares.
“The Nameless have been disappearing lately,” I say. “More and more, and right around her age. No one knows what happens to them. I’m worried. She could disappear from wherever they’ve stashed her—the prisons or the holding cells, or who knows where. Please check on her. But don’t send that spetzing angry cadet who doesn’t know Law Twenty-Two from Law Thirty-Six.”
Glenquartz raises an eyebrow. “Those are the two most cited sumptuary laws.”
Frustration overwhelms me, and I slam my open palm against the stones. “Law Twenty-Two: ‘A citizen shall not dress out of their class, such as a Legal wearing clothes of a Royal or the Nameless donning the clothes of either.’ Law Thirty-Six, the common exemption, where a Legal can wear a Royal’s clothing on the day of their wedding to a Royal, at which time the Legal becomes a Royal. Of course I know the stupid laws! I’ve broken more than half of them. I’m already here behind bars, so go ahead and arrest me again if you want to! But, please, will you check on Hat? She’s why I’m here. And if I can’t make sure she’s all right, she is why I’ll escape again. If you can tell me she’s safe, then I’ll stay here as long as you want me to. Please. Think of Flannery.”
I know it’s a risk to say that. If I promise to stay here, he could lie just to pacify me. But he has a daughter named Flannery with freckles and a carefree smile, a daughter he’s afraid of forgetting. He’s troubled, like a distant storm cloud. He takes a decided step away, but by the way he looks at me, I know he’s considering it. Then he leaves quietly, and I’m left alone, staring at the gray stones of the tunnel wall, which seem to shiver in the light of the lantern held by the guard who stays behind to watch me.
I press my forehead against the cell bars, letting the cool metal chill my skin. I told Glenquartz I wouldn’t leave the palace, but I didn’t say anything about leaving my cell. After all, I made Esther believe the door had vanished. There’s no telling what else I can do. I have magic.
I stare up at the dark ceiling, imagining I can see the sky. What have I gotten myself into? Hat has been arrested. I don’t know where she is. She could be dead right now or on her way to be killed. And all I can think about is what kind of magical powers I may or may not have.
Out in the city and with Glenquartz, I learned that I can see a person’s thoughts or memories when I touch them. Here in the palace, I was able to make Esther hallucinate that she was trapped in a room, but to me everything was normal. Maybe my abilities work on other people but not me? I study the tattoo on my arm in the small trace of light afforded by the lantern, trying to decide if I feel any different.
In addition to seeing memories and creating illusions, there’s something else. It was the storm cloud building when Glenquartz listened to me talk about Hat. It was the strange feeling of steel and ice that I sensed from Esther. It was the overwhelming pressure of the crowds in West Market.
I reach for it now. It’s a small buzzing sensation, like an ever-persistent fly buzzing around at the edge of my mind. I focus on it and realize that what I’m sensing is the aura of the guard outside the cell. The more I reach for it, the more I sense. Then, somewhere far overhead, I sense another aura, like a swirling crackle of lightning.
These auras are the blurs in my vision when my eyes are closed. They are columns of smoke I can barely detect. They are a type of energy I don’t yet understand.
As I search the dark ceiling, I can almost hear it. It’s a rhythmic pounding, like a distant heartbeat of the city. Maybe it’s the aura of someone else lurking in the depths of the dungeon: a prisoner long forgotten, a guard patrolling the darkness.
I don’t understand it yet, just as I don’t understand what happens to the Nameless when they go missing, or where Hat has been taken, or what awaits me tomorrow in this palace.
I don’t understand yet. But I’m going to.
CHAPTER 5
Glenquartz returns hours later, and I sense his aura before I see or hear him. It’s cautious and careful as he negotiates the dark tunnels with a flickering lantern and a tray of food.
He slides the food tray under the cell door—buttered flatbread and some kind of pink egg. Then he passes a thin metal flask through the bars. I examine both, balancing my hunger against the potential that either could be poisoned. He encourages me to eat, and I wonder if it’s worth pointing out that if he cares so much about me starving, he could try caring about the hundreds of Nameless starving on the streets. But caution prevails for once, and I keep quiet.
“I tracked down the cadet who arrested Hat,” Glenquartz says. “He passed her off to a guard who keeps watch over the northern holding cells, but it doesn’t look like she’s there. I haven’t found her yet.”
I curb my impatience that it’s taking him so long to find Hat, and I thank him for the food. As he leaves, I shout after him, “Bring me a pillow next time, will you?”
I see the corner of a smile as he departs.
There’s not much to do when I’m locked in a cell. I’ve searched every inch of it. Aside from the waste drain in the corner, there are sixteen broken pieces of stone from the wall, a tiny screw, and unpleasant evidence of rats.