Cursor's Fury (Codex Alera #3)(97)

She pressed closer, seizing Rook by the hair and forcing her to lift her face, though the woman's eyes were now swollen, mostly closed. "Where is the child?"

"Kalare," sobbed the spy. "He keeps her next to his chambers. To remind me what he can do."

Amara steeled herself not to falter, and her voice rang on the stone walls. "Is that where they've taken the prisoners?"

Rook shook her head, but the gesture was a feeble one, an obvious lie. "No," she whispered. "No, no, no."

Amara held the spy's eyes and willed resolve into her own. "Do you know where they are? Do you know how I can get to them?"

Silence fell, but for Rook's broken sounds of grief and pain. "Yes," she said, finally. "I know. But I can't tell you. If you rescue them, he'll kill her." She shuddered. "Countess, please, it's her only chance. Kill me here. I can't fail her."

Amara released Rook's hair and stepped back from the prisoner. She felt sick. "Bernard," she said quietly, nodding at a bucket in the corner. "Give her some water."

The Count did, his expression remote and deeply troubled. Rook made no sign that she noticed him, until he had actually lifted her head and used a ladle to pour some water between her lips. Then she drank with the mindless, miserable need of a caged beast.

Amara wiped the hand she'd touched the spy with upon her skirts, rubbing hard. Then she stepped outside and got the keys to the woman's shackles from the legionare on guard. As she stepped back into the cell, Lady Aquitaine touched her arm, her features returned to normal, her expression one of displeasure. "What do you think you are doing?"

Amara stopped in her tracks and met the High Lady's cold gaze in a sudden flash of confidence and steel-hard certainty.

Lady Aquitaine's eyebrows rose, startled. "What are you doing, girl?"

"I'm showing you the difference, Your Grace," she said. "Between my Realm. And yours."

Then she went to Rook and removed the shackles. Bernard caught the spy before she could collapse to the floor. Amara turned and summoned the legionare, then sent him to fetch a healer's tub and water to fill it.

Rook sat leaning weakly against Bernard's support. The spy stared up at Amara, expression mystified. "I don't understand," she said. "Why?"

"Because you're coming with us," Amara said quietly, and her voice sounded like a stranger's to her ear, certain and powerful. "We're going to Kalare. We're going to find them. We're going to find Lady Placidus and Atticus's daughter and your Masha. And we're going to take all of them away from that murderous slive."

Bernard shot a glance up at her, hazel eyes suddenly bright and somehow wolfish, glowing with a fierce and silent pride.

Rook only stared at her, as though she was a madwoman. "N-no... why would you... is this a trick?"

Amara knelt and took Rook's hand between hers, meeting her eyes. "I swear to you, Rook, by my honor that if you help us, I will do everything in my power to take your daughter safe away from him. I swear to you that I will lay down my own life before I let hers be lost."

Rook stared at her in silent shock.

Without ever looking away from the prisoner's eyes, Amara pressed her dagger into the spy's grasp, and lifted it so that Rook held the blade against Amara's throat. Then she dropped her hands slowly away from the weapon.

Bernard let out a short, sharp hiss, and she felt him tense. Then abruptly he relaxed again. She saw him nod at her out of the corner of her eye. Trusting her.