Chapter 19: The Cane

The cells under the Keep were not the ones from my nightmares.

They were clean, with a cot and a bucket and a barred window.

The captain of the Crown guard walked me down the corridor, her gray braid swinging.

"Ten minutes," she said. "I'll be at the stair."

Delphine sat on the cot with her knees drawn up.

They had taken the cream coat.

She wore a gray prison sweater, and her glossy hair was tied back with a bit of string.

She looked up when I came in, and her face crumpled at once.

"Wynn," she said. "Oh, Wynn."

"Don't."

"I didn't know what he would do to you."

"You knew exactly what you were doing." I stayed by the door.

"You asked me which side of the mountain I was on."

"I was afraid."

"Of what?"

"Of him." She wiped her face with her wrist.

"You don't know what he's like when he's disappointed. You never had a father you had to be good for."

"My father died," I said. "I had a mother who was sent away, and a brother who couldn't breathe.

"And I had a best friend who braided my hair."

She started to cry in earnest.

It was the same easy crying I had watched at the pass.

I waited until it stopped.

"Did you ever like me?" I said.

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