Throughout the rest of the night, I stole seven pillows from the sitting room. Six of them are decorative and small, and one of them is actually quite plush. I’ve lined the edges of the cell with them, evenly spaced like decorations. Glenquartz holds his lantern as close to the bars as he can, as if he can squeeze more light into the cell.
“They brighten the place up, don’t you think?” I say proudly. “Now, is that food for me, or are you going to eat that yourself? Don’t take this the wrong way: you don’t seem like a stale-bread type of person. But I am.” I gesture at the plate in his hands.
“Did…did one of my cadets bring them?” Glenquartz asks.
I purse my lips, considering. “That would make sense, wouldn’t it? After all, I am a Nameless grifter from the streets. Odds are, I’m smarter than your guards, and I’ve conned them into doing my bidding. Or bribed them. Or threatened them. Though the pillows could just be hallucinations, couldn’t they? I could’ve invented them. Do you think I did?”
I press down on one of the pillows. “It’s quite soft. Hard to tell. Could be either.”
I throw the pillow up in the air, and before it falls down, I concentrate on making it disappear. Glenquartz rubs his eyes in shock as the pillow vanishes before it can fall. Of course the pillow landed in my lap, but he doesn’t know that.
“Now,” I say, “did I make a real pillow disappear? Or was it never really there to begin with?” I frown pensively.
Glenquartz shakes his head as he slides the plate underneath the door. I bite into the bread. Not quite stale, but close.
“Have you found Hat yet?” I ask.
Glenquartz shakes his head. “Not yet. The Royal Council has been meeting almost nonstop since you arrived, trying to decide what to do about you.”
“That’s probably for the best,” I say. “I shouldn’t be the only one locked up through all of this. And now that they’ve verified the tattoo is real, they’ll want to know why I’m Nameless as well. Was it a mistake? Do I really have a name? What is the purpose of magic, anyway?” I roll my eyes. In fairness, the questions do plague me. The tattoo can only be passed on by name, which means that somehow, I have to have a name. And the king knew it. Vexing.
“What do you think is going to happen?” I ask. As I speak, I make the pillows disappear one by one. The only way I know it’s working is that his eyes follow the pattern around the room. I feel a bit crass testing him like this, but the alternative is spiders.
“They’ll be hard-pressed to admit you’re Nameless. They’re scared about what it’s doing to the city.”
“What do you mean, ‘what it’s doing to the city’? I’m not doing anything to the city. I’m in prison, in case you forgot.”
He waves his hand and hums under his breath. “They should have a decision by tomorrow, certainly.”
“We should be friends, you and me,” I say.
Glenquartz nearly laughs. “Friends with a grifter? Is there such a thing?”
I brush his comment off. “You’re the only one who cares about Hat. We both want her to be safe. We both want to make sure I don’t die down here. Need I mention our shared fondness for pillows?” I spread my arms out at my colorful collection of mostly real pillows.
Despite his obvious amusement, he appraises the pillows with a critical gaze. “I’m having your guards rotated more frequently.”
I flash him a winning smile. Excellent.
Glenquartz is true to his word. He increases the guard shifts so that they change every hour instead of every three, and I hardly see the same face twice. If I was trying to build a relationship with one of them to run a con, that would make it more difficult. But I’m strictly in theft mode, and more faces means fewer people who get wise to my actions. I’m able to practice on more and more people, sneaking up on them while making them unable to see me.
By the time Glenquartz shows up the following afternoon—day three in prison—I’ve fished twelve oddities from the pockets of my guards. I keep the four copper coins in my pocket and a handful of writing utensils under a small pile of rocks in the corner. I’ve started keeping the knife hidden under my one remaining sleeve, ready to wield at any moment.
“What can I do for you, Glen-beard?” I ask.
He raises an eyebrow. “Glen-beard? Just Glen is fine.” He absently runs a finger down the jawline of his crisp, graying beard. Then he does something I don’t expect. He unlocks my cell door, opens it, and steps aside. He’s as somber as can be, and my immediate thought is that something terrible has happened to Hat and this is his way of showing remorse.
“Not that I don’t appreciate you saving me the trouble,” I say, “but what’s going on?”
I keep my shoulders and posture loose, but my legs are tensed to run if he so much as utters a single word that sounds like “gallows” or “execution.”
“The Royal Council has been debating since you arrived about whether to execute you or not.”
I’d be running already if it wasn’t for the gentle gray fog of his aura.
He gestures for me to leave the cell and he doesn’t reach for his cuffs. He simply stands aside as I join him tentatively.
“And?” I ask, gripping the kitchen knife.
“They’ve made up their mind.”
CHAPTER 6
Glenquartz leads me through the palace in the northern corridor. I’ve been this way before, but I make a show of looking around curiously as if I’m trying to figure things out.
“We’re meeting the Royal Council in the north assembly room,” Glenquartz explains. “There will be ten of us, not counting you. General Demure, head of the Royal Guard, will lead the conversation. It’s not far from here.”
“A left at the bronze bust and a right at the lion statue, yeah?” I say.
Glenquartz regards me skeptically. “We…didn’t come through this way when you were escorted to the dungeon….”
“Your cadets love to talk, dearest lieutenant.” I get a certain kind of satisfaction from his bewilderment. Obviously, I can get to the assembly room on my own, but I can’t resist flustering Glen-beard.
Now he’s trying to give me a brief tour. “Here is where the second sovereign was assassinated—there’s still a snowflake splinter in the green stained glass where the bloody arrow tip pierced the window. Here is where citizens who have left their cities or been exiled can petition Seriden’s sovereign for citizenship. Farther along is the palace’s Med Ward. Down that corridor is the kitchen, where the Legal servants work, and down this corridor is a private library.”