Chapter 12: The Maw

I woke in the right room with a pink arm draped over my waist and a second one holding my hand.

Lorcan was asleep.

It was the first time I had ever seen him sleep without a frown.

I lay still and looked at him, and thought: I could do this every morning.

Above his shoulder, faint in the grey light, the white number still hung between us.

Ninety-nine.

It had not gone back down in the night.

I did not know whether I was glad or afraid, and I did not have time to decide.

Then somebody pounded on the front door.

"In the name of the Regent!"

Lorcan's eyes opened at once.

"Stay here," he said.

"No."

We went out together, dressed in whatever we could find.

It was not the guards on the walkway.

It was the courier in the sea-green coat, and behind him stood Lord Tristram Verrin in his dark travelling cloak.

He carried a scroll with a wax seal.

"Your Highness. Miss Harlowe." Tristram bowed to us both, very correctly.

"I am sorry for yesterday," he said. "The Regent's men acted without my knowledge. I had a guest, not a stray, and I told them so."

"You were at the window," Lorcan said.

"I was on my way down the stairs."

"You were at the window."

Tristram inclined his head.

He did not argue, and he did not look ashamed.

"I come with the Regent's decree," he said instead.

"Yesterday, before the whole lower town, the heir of Saltmere let eight arms loose in the street."

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