The Blood Mirror Never Lies novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: What the Court Saw

The red halo stopped halfway across the floor and hung there, trembling.

The first of my years had come home, one girl on a gate, and then the thread went still.

"Cassian," I said. "It stopped."

"I stopped it." His hand was still wrapped round my bleeding arm. "Not here. You'd have all of it at once, in front of seven hundred people."

"I want it."

"Yes. You'll have it tonight, and you'll be alone with me and no one else."

I looked at the Court, at the crack in the Mirror and at the old woman's son holding tight to my arm.

"Tonight," I agreed. "I'm not finished with them."

The old councillor in the black cap rapped his stick on the stone three times.

"The Council will sit," he said. "Here, where the Court can see it."

He didn't have a chair, so he stood.

The other three seats came and stood beside him.

The Elder remained where he was, alone in the open space before the glass with his hands at his sides.

"Elder Crane," said the old man. "The Unwritten ledger is in this hall. The pages are in my hands, and the receipts are in your hand."

"I did it for the Court."

"For the Court."

"A Lord who remembers his mother is a Lord who asks where she went," said the Elder, quite calmly. "A court that answers is a court that bleeds. I kept the Court whole for forty years."

"You kept it whole by selling its Lady for forty gold," said the old man.

"I kept it fed."

"You kept your seat."

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