Then a scream broke the silence. It came from a vast metal sphere - no, a spherical metal cage - which dangled over empty space. It hung from a set of cables and chains that rose to a ceiling almost out of sight above them. The noise was shocking and sudden, like an owl’s screech in the middle of a peaceful night. It was also just as inhuman, just as animal. Whatever was in that cage, Irene did not want it to get out.
She had considered the other inhabitants earlier as potential allies. She had wondered if she and Vale could liberate some, and escape with Kai in the confusion. But the more she experienced the prison’s fundamental vastness and coldness, the less she liked the idea. This sort of prison argued for a very dangerous sort of prisoner. Ones who were so strange and insane that they even scared other Fae. So letting them out might be the sort of really bad idea that finished with a scream and a crunch.
‘How much further do you think it will be, Winters?’ Vale asked.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Irene said, shrugging. ‘I could argue that Kai wouldn’t be too far from the entrance, simply on the grounds of convenience. But they might have some form of transportation that is faster than walking.’
Vale nodded. ‘I had hoped at least to find tracks,’ he said again, gesturing at the pristine stone paving in front of them.
‘I think the situation may not be quite as bad as we thought,’ she insisted.
‘In what way?’ Vale asked.
‘Some of the Fae may want a war.’ She thought over the last couple of days. ‘But Lord Guantes isn’t being treated as a particularly honoured guest here. He needed his own minions to provide security at the opera. He was being watched by the Ten’s secret police, too. It sounds as if the Ten are giving him only the minimum level of cooperation.’
‘But why would the Ten cooperate with the Guantes at all, if they’re not fully behind them?’ Vale said. ‘If they would rather rule their lands than expand their boundaries, that’s their prerogative, but why then meddle with bigger schemes?’
‘Because the Ten can’t not cooperate with the Guantes, if they seem to be making a major political move,’ Irene said. ‘It’d be like, oh …’ She tried to remember the political complexities of Vale’s world. ‘As if someone had pulled in a major French spy in the middle of London and announced it to all the papers. The government would have to handle the matter sternly, even if they’d rather just brush it under the carpet and send the spy back to France, or even trade him for one of their own. The Guantes’ power play has made it impossible for the Ten here to be neutral, or they’d risk losing face and power. And if the Guantes succeed … Then the Ten will certainly gain from a war, along with all the other Fae. But if the Guantes fail and embarrass themselves, the Ten will want to disassociate themselves from the Guantes, along with everyone else.’
‘Plausible,’ Vale said. ‘But we’re trying to breach the Ten’s private prison here, Winters. If we succeed, they’ll have every reason to want us as dead as the Guantes do, if not more so. We’re striking directly at their power base, even if we blame the Guantes for it—’ Then he stopped and indicated for Irene to stay silent. In the far distance, barely audible despite the oppressive silence, she could just hear the sound of footsteps, carried to them by some trick of the architecture.
Guards. Or pursuers. Or both.
The next flight of stairs was brutal. It went up at an angle of perhaps sixty degrees, each step formed of pale slippery marble and high enough that Irene’s legs were aching before they were halfway up. Vale reached the top ahead of her and looked back - but no one was following them yet.
Irene pulled herself up to the top step. Then, gritting her teeth, she checked the pendant again. It was finally pointing somewhere concrete - at an enormous pillar to the right of their staircase. The pillar was vast, around ninety feet across, and as far as she could make out, it ran from the floor to the ceiling of the prison. Bridges protruded from it like spurs at different heights, and it was ornamented with jutting pennants sporting incomprehensible grey-on-grey designs.
But when they reached it, there weren’t even any obvious windows or grilles penetrating its interior. Irene walked around it, holding the pendant out hopefully, but while it indicated the pillar from every direction, it didn’t favour any particular place to start.
‘I could try commanding it,’ she said dubiously. ‘Telling it to open or something?’ It should work, but it might also open every other closed door within range of her voice. And she really didn’t want to meet the other prisoners here.
‘Let me examine it first,’ Vale snapped. He was all alertness now, tense and focused. He dropped to his knees in front of the column, leaning in till his nose was half an inch from the floor. There, he shuffled along on all fours, squinting at it mysteriously. After what seemed an age, he sprang to his feet, running his fingers up the seam between two of the blocks of stone. ‘I - yes, I believe I have it. Here.’ His voice was quiet, but as tense as a tuned violin string. He tapped at a particular point, at approximately eye level. ‘Winters, I believe there is a lock of some sort here, which would normally require a key, but under the circumstances …’
Irene nodded. She stepped next to him and leaned in until her lips were nearly touching the stone. ‘Lock, open,’ she murmured.
The seam in the column parted, and one of the blocks of stone swung inwards to reveal a short, dark passageway with an open space just visible beyond. It was entirely silent as they both crept inside.
The room at the centre of the pillar was cold and dim, lit by thin shards of light, which fell from slits in the walls high above. And there Kai was at last, chained against the far wall.
It would have been dignified to stand back and make a clever remark, but Irene was past dignity. She threw her arms around Kai, heedless of whether there might be any traps, and simply hugged him for a long moment.
He was in shirt and trousers that had seen better days, with his waistcoat hanging loose, and bruises showed livid on his face. A heavy dark collar circled his neck, with no visible lock, and thick shackles of iron bound his wrists to the wall. He looked at Irene and Vale as if they were an impossibility, as if they might not really be here at all.
Irene took a deep breath. Her eyes burned, and for a moment she thought she was going to sniffle embarrassingly. ‘I am very unimpressed with these lodgings,’ she said, pushing herself away from Kai with an effort. He was alive - something that she’d doubted in her darkest moments. She slipped the pendant over her head again. ‘Vale, do you think you can pick those locks?’
Seemingly lost for words, Vale clasped Kai’s shoulder for a moment - probably the closest he could come to Irene’s own hug - and then turned to examine the iron cuffs on Kai’s wrists. ‘If they were normal locks, I am certain that I could,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately, I suspect that they have Fae enchantments on them. Can you give me any information about them, Strongrock?’
Kai opened his mouth, then shut it, then opened it again. ‘Irene … Vale …’ His voice was rusty and dry. He looked between them desperately. ‘You are real, aren’t you? Not some sort of illusion? If I told you to pinch me, then would you pinch me?’
‘Yes,’ Irene said sharply. ‘I would. And I would pinch you so hard you’d wish you’d never asked. Kai, we are here - you aren’t hallucinating. We came.’ She hugged him again, trying to convince him. ‘And we’re probably running out of time. I’ll answer questions later. Do you know anything about those shackles?’
‘The collar’s enchanted, to keep me in this form and bind my powers,’ Kai said, then stopped, shaking his head. His voice shook. ‘I’m sorry. I still can’t … I don’t know about the others. Maybe if Irene uses the Language - how did you get here? We’re down in the far end of chaos.’
‘We are in the ancient prison of a particularly corrupt group of Fae, whose world bears a resemblance to a romantic seventeenth-century Venice,’ Vale said, stepping back and almost visibly withdrawing himself from emotional displays. ‘We arrived by train. Winters, you may deal with the chains. It’s impossible for me to open those locks.’
Irene wished she could be that short on detail when reporting to Coppelia. Of course reporting to Coppelia implied that she would get out of here alive … ‘Hmm,’ she said, bending in close and staring at the chains. ‘My abilities don’t allow me to sense anything specific about these. Vale, we may want to stand back. I’ll try the collar first.’ he stopped and indicated for Irene to stay silent. In the far distance, barely audible despite the oppressive silence, she could just hear the sound of footsteps, carried to them by some trick of the architecture.
Guards. Or pursuers. Or both.