Page 102 of The Court of Venus

He’d chiseled the entirety of his name so painstakingly into the wood. It was him. He was here.

But where was the key?

I slammed my shoulder into the door. It didn’t even shudder, let alone budge.

I crawled back up the stairs, up the slippery moss and the unforgiving wet stone, until I knelt by the guard I’d left dozing in his chair. I turned his pockets over again. There was nothing, nothing at all, but in the light of the wavering torch, something shone on his hand. A very old, tarnished ring. Stamped in it was a ♄, the glyph of Saturn.

I wrenched it off his finger.

When I stood before the door wearing the ring, the lock clicked and hissed. The Saturn spell, tricked by me. Assuming a new traitor was entering the cell, or one was leaving it, that death was near.

And when the door opened, I saw how very near it was.

Roland was blindfolded, gagged, his arms tied behind a chair.

Hearing someone step inside his cell, he began to squirm in his seat, moaning for them to stay away. Edward Guildford sat against the headboard, crying that he’d had enough, and it was so cold, and couldn’t he go home now? Beside the bed, a far stranger sight, was the wooden executioner’s block.

My sword clattered to the floor. I fell to my knees before Roland and pulled out his gag. He coughed, breathing heavily, so frightened and in such pain, I had to close my mind to his as I used the knife in my boot to snip the bindings around his wrists, then his blindfold.

His eyes widened, blinking in the dark, until finally, they settled on my face.

“Mouse,” he breathed.

I pulled him into my arms, and we held each other, trembling, until Roland cried out. “My shoulder,” he hissed.

I lifted my hand and saw it was covered in his blood. His wounds, bleeding through the linen shirt he wore, and the cloth laid to stanch them. “I’m sorry,” I said, my hand shaking. I wiped it across my gown, then turned his face from side to side, inspecting it as best I could in the scant light. There was a tear in his lip, caked blood in his ear from the jewelry torn through the lobe. They’d broken his nose. Broken a rib. Several fingernails were ripped off.

Now I was seething with rage.

I turned to Edward. “You left him in such a state?” I demanded.

He raised bound wrists. “I could do nothing. They only untie me to serve the lord chancellor his food.”

The guards had taken every precaution. Even blindfolded and gagged, Roland could still grasp Edward’s mind.

I sliced through Edward’s bindings. He leapt to his feet, drawing a feeble butter knife. “You aren’t meant to be here. I’m the only one meant to be here, to—” He blanched under my stare and wiped his eyes. “To keep the lord chancellor occupied and hear his prayers to Saturn.” It sounded as if he’d recited Charles Guildford’s exact command to him. “He—he’s to be punished!”

I ignored this, turning to show Roland the weapons I’d brought. “Sword or knife?”

He was so weak I didn’t know if he could wield either, but he nodded wearily to the knife, and I handed it over.

“Can you stand?”

“Hardly.” He kept his face turned away from me as he tried.

“Lean on me.” He did, but he was so much taller than I was, and much heavier. I could transform into someone with more brawn, but I wanted to conserve magic. So I gritted my teeth and hoisted his arm around my shoulder. “Why is the executioner’s block here?”

“Oh, that.” A grimace as he tested his jaw. “I had the guards deliver it, so I could practice laying my head on it. I wanted to look dignified on the scaffold.”

“You rehearsed your own beheading? Roland.”

“Say my name like that again, with just that amount of irritation. I’d like that to be the last thing I ever hear.”

“I’ve come to save you, so you’ve practiced for nothing.”

“Oh,” he said, grimacing again. “But Ed and I choreographed it all so well. I even had a speech prepared. It’s all right, Mouse, I do think I can stand.”

“You’re sure?”