Chapter 9: The Cage

They went out through the side door behind the dais before anyone in the hall had finished gasping.

There was a corridor.

Then another one, lined with tapestries, and a footman with a tray who flattened himself against the wall and dropped every glass.

Behind them, somebody was shouting for the guard.

Ianthe had no idea where she was going.

She had been inside the palace maybe five times in her life, and always in the ballroom.

The wolf knew.

At the end of the tapestry corridor he swung left without slowing, and the sash nearly pulled her arm out of its socket.

Left, down a servants' stair.

Right, past a door that smelled of bread.

Through a kitchen full of steam, where a cook screamed and threw a ladle, and the wolf jumped a basket of onions and Ianthe didn't.

Out a low door into a laundry yard hung with sheets.

He went through the sheets, and Ianthe went through them with a wet one round her head.

Then there was a gate, and an alley, and the cold grey city.

She could hear boots behind them on the cobbles.

"Where are you taking me?" she gasped.

He didn't answer, because he was a wolf.

He just ran, and she ran after him, with her skirts in one fist and the sash in the other.

They came out at the top of the river stairs by the fish market.

The tide was out, the stone steps green and slimy, and the market was full.

Women gutting herring on boards. Boys with baskets.

The smell hit Ianthe like a wall.

And at the bottom of the stairs, by the water, stood eight men in Morcaine's black and silver, with nets.

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