I start down the stairs before I can change my mind. Careful and deliberate, one by one, each step anxious. It takes me at least a full minute to reach the ground. The murk of evening gathers around the empty street.
I take some deep breaths. Straighten. No telling if one of the guards might be idly looking out the window, as I so often did. I affect purposeful nonchalance and walk—slowly, still, but with barely a trace of the effort and pain it takes—over to the prison’s entrance.
No sound from within. I take out the forged document I created earlier today. The red seal is imbued with my own Will rather than Kanifer’s, but there’s no way for those inside to know that.
The outer door is familiar thick stone. I close my eyes, place my hand against it. Feel the Will holding it in place.
It becomes mine. I steady myself, and rap brusquely on the door.
“What in the rotting …” I hear a scrambling from inside, and a round, squinting face appears at the window. Bemused more than alarmed, clearly not expecting anyone. That’s good. “Who are you?”
“Catenicus.” I brandish the paper in my hand briskly. “Orders from Princeps Laurentius via Quartus Kanifer. I’m to relocate a prisoner from here immediately.”
The man’s eyes flick to my missing arm. Confusion fading to suspicion. “We weren’t told—”
“I’m telling you now, Septimus.” I roll my eyes at him. “Gods, man. I know I’m from Governance, but I have the documentation and if you have any idea what’s happening tonight, you’ll get this moving.Quietly.”
Some audible sputtering at my impatience, but he disappears and a few seconds later the small compartment next to the door slides open. I deposit the forged paper.
Heart pounding, I focus on the sliver of my Will as the compartment shuts again. It raises slightly in the room beyond as the orders are examined. A pause, a little too long, and I wonder through the pain whether this is as far as I’m getting.
Then my imbued seal moves toward the door, until it hits the left-hand side of it.
I focus on the Adopted Will in the door, and slide it smoothly open.
The guard inside is frowning as he looks between the door and its release slot, and I wonder if my timing was too far off. But either it wasn’t or, more likely, the man puts any minor discrepancy down to his imagination. I feel Will returning to me as he snaps the seal and ushers me in. “Who are you here for?”
“There’s a reason that order you’re holding doesn’t have a name. Where’s your ledger?” Impatient and authoritarian.
The woman in the corner looks displeased, but the man fetches the logbook of prisoners and thrusts it petulantly at me. They don’t like this, and under normal circumstances, even knowing who I am, I’d be detained until they could double-check my story.
But these are not normal circumstances. They know what’s planned for tonight. They say nothing as I scan through the names.
“Are these current?” I ask the question with a sort of irritable absence, though it’s an important one. Do my best not to sway as my legs scream at me and metal digs into my imbued skin in support of my weight.
“I’m not sure,” admits the woman.
So no, then. Not surprising; too many people would have been unlawfully added over the past two weeks to keep records up to date. But Indol knew about Lanistia; she should be on here at least, assuming she hasn’t been moved. Or worse.
I find her name. Not in the deep cells, to my pleasant surprise. Perhaps in the chaos of the festival, the severity of her sentence was suspended. Not that I’m going to risk leaving her here, whether the ledger is correct or not. But if she’s not suffering the effects of a Sapper, it will be significantly easier to get her out.
I almost close the ledger, doing only a cursory final scan, when my heart sinks.
Ulciscor Telimus. Deep Cells, North 79.
Vek.
I read the name again, some part of me hoping my anxious mind was making it up. Vek, vek,vek.
“Something wrong, Quintus?” The woman. More suspicious and less intimidated than her companion.
“No.” I close the book with a snap and hand it back. “Unlock the door, please. I’ll knock when I come back.”
“We can’t let you down there alone.”
“You can and you will, Septimus.” My legs choose that moment to fire pain upward through my body and I barely restrain a chasing, obvious spasm. “And when I return, you’ll both be busy at that desk”—I nod toward the desk up against the wall—“and won’t see the prisoners’ faces.”
“I thought you said it would be just the one.”
