Chapter 15: The Cell

Theron Draycott did not sleep that night.

He lay beside Linnea in the grey blanket until her breathing went slow, and he listened to every sound in the keep.

For the first time in a year he was not counting.

It frightened him more than the Quiet Corps had.

She was warm against his side, and she had heard every word he thought, and she had stayed.

Now the whole world had a way to take her from him, and it was two days away.

At the midnight bell he eased out from under her arm.

She stirred and said his name without waking.

He stood very still until she settled.

Then he dressed in the dark and went down the east stair with a lantern.

The short captain had a cell in the lowest vault of Greywater, behind two doors and a Watch sergeant.

Theron wanted him to talk.

He had been turning the question over all day: who had told the captains where the witnesses would be on the road.

Only four people had known, and one of them was Theron.

The sergeant was sitting on a stool at the foot of the vault stair with his head against the wall.

"Sergeant."

The man did not move.

Theron set down the lantern and put two fingers to his neck.

The pulse was strong.

He was only asleep, deeply, with a cup of tea gone cold beside his boot.

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