Was that why he, Jared, hadn’t told her yet?
He had to do it now. She should know.The thought that she should also know about his arrangement with the Queen rose up at once and tormented him.
He said, ‘Attia, Attia. Answer me. Please.’ But all that answered was a sharp beep in his pocket. He whipped out the scanner and swore softly. Maybe the watchers had got tired of snoring on the Tower doorstep and come looking for him.
Someone was creeping through the cellars.
‘We should stay on the path,’ Keiro snapped down at her; she was staring intently into the undergrowth.
‘I tell you I heard it. My name.’ Keiro scowled and slid down from the horse. ‘We can’t ride in there.’
‘Then we crawl’ She had crouched, was on hands and knees. In the green gloom a tangle of roots sprawled under the high leaves. ‘Underneath. It has to be fairly close!’ Keiro hesitated. ‘If we turn aside the Prison will think we’re double-crossing it.’
‘Since when were you scared of Incarceron?’ She looked up at him and he stared back hard, because she always seemed to know just how to needle him. Then she said, ‘Wait here.
I’ll go on my own,’ and crawled in.
With a hiss of irritation Keiro tethered the horse tight and crawled in after her. The leaf litter was a mass of tiny brittle foliage; he felt it crunch under his knees, stab through his gloves. The roots were vast, a snaky smooth mesh of metal.
After a while he realized they were great cables, snaking out into the Prison’s soil, supporting the foliage like a canopy.
There was hardly room to raise his head, and over his bent back briars and thorns and brambles of steel tore and snagged his hair.
‘Keep lower,’ Attia muttered. ‘Lie flat.’ Keiro swore long and viciously as his scarlet coat ripped at the shoulder. ‘For god’s sake, there’s nothing—’
‘Listen.’ She stopped, her foot in his face. ‘Hear it?’ A voice.
A voice of static and crackle, as if the spiny branches themselves had picked up its repeated syllables.
Keiro rubbed his face with a dirty hand. ‘Go on,’ he said quietly.
They crawled under the razor-sharp tangle. Attia dug her fingers in the litter and pulled herself along. Pollen made her sneeze; the air was thick with micro—dust. A Beetle scurried, clicking, through her hair.
She wriggled past a thick trunk and saw, as if it was wreathed in the forest of thorn and razorwire, the wall of a dark building.
‘It’s like Rix’s book,’ she gasped.
‘Another one?’
‘A beautiful princess sleeps for a hundred years in a ruined castle.’ Keiro grunted, dragging his hair from thorns. ‘So.’
‘A thief breaks in and steals a cup from her treasure. She turns into a dragon and they fight.’ Keiro wriggled up next to her. He was breathless, his hair lank with dirt and sweat. ‘I must be thick even to listen to you. Who wins?’
‘The dragon. She eats him, and then . . .‘ Static crackled.
Keiro hauled himself into a dusty space. Bines sprawled up a wall of dark glossy brick. In its base a very tiny wooden door was smothered with ivy.
Behind it, the voice sparked and crackled.
‘Who’s there?’ it whispered.
I fooled the Prison I fooled my father.
I asked a question It could not answer.
SONGS OF SAPPHIQUE
‘It’s me! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!’ Jared closed his eyes in relief. Then he opened the door and let Claudia dart in. Her evening dress was covered with a dark cloak. She said, ‘Is Finn here?’
‘Finn? No …’
‘He’s challenged the Pretender to a duel. Can you believe that?’ Jared went back to the screen. ‘I’m afraid I can, Claudia.’ She stared beyond him at the mess. ‘Why are you here in the middle of the night?’ Coming closer, she looked at him closely. ‘Master, you look so drained. You should sleep.’
‘I can sleep at the Academy.’ There was a bitter note in his voice that she didn’t recognize.
Worried, she crouched on the workbench, pushing the fine tools aside. ‘But I thought …’
‘I leave tomorrow, Claudia.’
‘So soon?’ It shook her. She said, ‘But . . . you’re getting so close to success. Why not take a few more days. .
‘I can’t.’ He was never so short with her. She wondered if it was the pain, driving him on. And then he sat, folding his long thin fingers together on the desk, and said sadly, ‘Oh Claudia, how I wish we were safely at home at the Wardenry. I wonder how my foxcub is doing, and the birds. And I miss my observatory, Claudia. I miss looking out at the stars.’ Gently she said, ‘You’re homesick, Master.’
‘A little.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m sick of the Court. Of its stifling Protocol. Of its exquisite meals and endlessly sumptuous rooms where each door hides a watcher. I should like a little peace.’ It silenced her. Jared was rarely gloomy; his grave calm was always there, a safe presence at her back. She fought down her alarm. ‘We’ll go home then, Master, as soon as Finn is safely on the throne. We’ll go home. Just you and me.’ He smiled, nodding, and she thought he looked wistful.
‘That may be a long time. And a challenge won’t help.’
‘The Queen’s forbidden them to fight.’
‘Good.’ His fingers tapped together on the desk. She realized that the systems were all live, the Portal humming with distorted energy.
He said, ‘I have something to tell you, Claudia. Something important.’ Leaning forward, he didn’t look at her.
‘Something I should have told you before, that I shouldn’t have kept from you. This journey to the Academy. There is a reason that . . . the Queen has allowed me to go …’
‘To search the Esoterica, I know,’ she said impatiently, pacing up and down. ‘I know! I just wish I could come. Why let you and not me? What’s she up to?’ Jared raised his head and watched her. His heart was hammering; he felt almost too ashamed to speak. ‘Claudia
…’
‘But then perhaps it’s just as well I’m staying. A duel! He’s got no idea how to behave! It’s as if he’s forgotten all he ever was …’ Catching her tutor’s eye she stopped and laughed an awkward laugh. ‘Sorry What were you going to say?’ There was an ache in him that was not caused by his illness. Dimly he recognized it as anger, anger and a deep, bitter pride. He had not known he was proud. You are her tutor, her brother, and more her father than I have ever been. The Warden’s scorching words of jealousy came back to him; for a moment he savoured them, gazing at Claudia as she waited, so unsuspecting. How could he destroy the trust between them?
‘This,’ he said. He tapped the watch that lay on the desk.
‘I think you ought to have it.’ Claudia looked relieved, then surprised. ‘My father’s watch?’
‘Not the watch. This.’ She came closer. He was touching the silver cube that hung on the chain. It had been so familiar in her father’s hands that she barely noticed it, but now a sudden wonder swept her that her father — so austere a man — should have worn a charm.