The Liar's Key (The Red Queen's War #2)(139)

“My grandda used to tell stories about Skilfar. She never sounded too bad. Helped as many people as she didn’t.” Hennan shrugged. “Who do you want to give the key to?”

“The Queen of Red March! You’re not going to insult my grandmother I hope?”

The boy shot me a dark glance. “And the key will be safe from witches in your grandmother’s hands will it?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it. Kara had obviously been telling the boy tales about the Silent Sister. I glanced over my shoulder. The shadows still lay thick enough to hide a multitude of sins—any manner of witch or dead man could be creeping up on us as we wasted time watching the prison.

Still, the fact that all the dry bones in the city hadn’t converged on us during the night seemed to indicate that the Dead King couldn’t track the key with any great accuracy. Perhaps he only knew its location when it came near a corpse. In most cities there would be enough fresh corpses in the gutters come morning to pose a problem if they started dragging themselves out. Umbertide has remarkably little violent crime though—I guess its citizens are all too busy with the more lucrative kind. I hoped that, barring someone dropping dead at our feet, we would be safe enough if we kept our eyes open, especially during the day. Kara, however, had found us pretty quickly after our escape. She’d placed one charm on the key to hide it—it seemed likely that she’d placed another on it to find it. Her magics couldn’t be that potent though or she would have found a way to get to Hennan in the debtors’ prison . . . unless of course her hiding charm hid the key from even her . . . my head began to spin with the possibilities and I found myself imagining the curve of her lips instead and feeling a deep sense of injustice and betrayal. None of the tales I’d told myself about Kara and me had ended like this . . .

I rubbed my sore eyes and sat back on my haunches. A yawn overwhelmed me. I felt more tired and in need of sleep than I had at any point in my life. All I really wanted to do was lie down and close my eyes . . .

“We have to do something!” Hennan tugged at my shirtsleeve with new resolve. “Snorri would never leave you in there!”

“I wouldn’t be in there!” I bristled at the suggestion. “I’m no fraud—” I broke off, realizing that in the eyes of Umbertide’s officialdom that was exactly what I was. Very likely only my family name had saved me the horrors of the Tower, or perhaps the paperwork just hadn’t had time to go through. Considering Umbertide’s addiction to bureaucracy, and the glacial pace with which they progressed things, the latter guess was possibly the true answer.

I looked up with a shudder at the granite walls of the Frauds’ Tower. High above us the first rays of the sun were warming terracotta tiles on the conical roof. Snorri had held out against his jailers’ questions for days now, how many I couldn’t say, four? Five? And for what? Eventually they’d break him and, for all he knew, take the key. His pain was as pointless as his quest. Did he really think someone would save him? Who the hell was going to do that? Who did he even know? Certainly not anyone he could possibly expect to storm the jail and get him out . . .

“We could climb the . . .” Hennan trailed off, silencing himself—I didn’t even have to tell him that we couldn’t.

“God damn it, the big idiot can’t think that . . . I? That’s just not reasonable! I don’t even—”

“Shhhh!” Hennan turned and pushed me back.

Two men passed our side street, deep in conversation. We crouched, hidden behind a flight of steps, me fighting a sudden urge to sneeze.

“. . . the other one. The regulations though! Do this, do that, get this signed . . . ah Jesus! Ten forms, two courts, and five days just to set a hot iron to flesh!” A solid man, thick-necked, silhouetted against the brightening Patrician Street. Something familiar about him.

“Everything in its time, specialist, and in its turn. It is not as if the duress applied so far has been . . . gentle. The law requires that beating, the stick, and the flail are used before irons. A case must be made for each, along with the correct . . .” The second man’s voice trailed off as they carried on down the street. A horse clattered by in the opposite direction, black-clad rider astride its back. Soon the streets would be full of errands as banking hours arrived.

I raised myself above the steps and looked down at Hennan. “There was something . . .” The second man had seemed familiar too, though I only saw him in silhouette, a smaller man, a modern to judge by the stupidity of his hat. Something about his gait, very precise, very measured. And the voice of the first . . . he’d had an accent. “Come on!”

I dragged Hennan to the corner and, crouching, peered after the pair. They’d crossed over to present themselves to the clockwork soldier at the Tower door and stood with their backs to us. The soldier dwarfed them both, taking the scroll offered by the taller of the two in a surprisingly delicate pincered grip. The modern turned a fraction so I caught his profile. Like all his kind, he had the white face of a man who avoided the sun with fanaticism, but this particular shade of fish-belly white went past even the pallor of a Norseman in winter. “Marco!”

“Who’s—” I clamped a hand over Hennan’s mouth and pulled him back.

“Marco,” I said. “A banker. One of the least human humans I’ve ever met, and I’ve known some monsters.” Also the last person I wanted to see since I owed his bank more than I owed Maeres Allus. But what was he doing here? Had it been the House Gold who put a sixty-four thousand florin debt on a beggar boy and set him to starve in debtors’ prison? Was it House Gold that had turned the wheels and cogs of Umbertide justice to licence hot irons to loosen Snorri’s tongue?