The Liar's Key (The Red Queen's War 2)

“Eight-one-six-three-two!” the guard bellowed it as if he were on a parade ground. “On your feet!”

The harshness of that shout made me wince, me who would be walking out of here burdened with gold and with a meal whose price might buy one of these souls’ freedom turning sour in my belly. I reached out a quick hand to the man’s bicep. “Enough. Open it.” Teeth gritted.

“Costs two hexes to unlock in the Dregs,” he said without rancour.

I fished in my pocket for something as small as his fee, bringing up three of the six-sided coppers after an age of fumbling. “Do it.” My hand trembled though I wasn’t sure what I was angry about.

The cell monkey made a show of counting through his keys and eventually set the heaviest bit of iron on his ring into the lock before us. He beat the bars once more, setting my teeth on edge, and drew back the gate.

“You’re sure that’s him?” The figure held nothing familiar about it. Ribs standing out where they curved toward his spine, hair dark with grime. I could pick this thing of skin and bones up in my arms and stand without effort. All those miles we’d trekked south . . . bringing us out of the northern wastes had delivered him to this?

I handed my case to Ta-Nam and stepped inside, painfully aware of the debtors to either side, hands hooked into what seemed like talons. The stench of them made my eyes water and caught at my throat. Five paces brought me to the figure. I kicked a patch of flagstone cleaner and went to one knee.

“It’s me . . . Prince J—It’s me Jalan.”

The slightest twitch, a hunching, as if the bones all squeezed that bit closer together beneath the skin.

“Are you—” I didn’t know what to say. Was he all right? He didn’t look all right.

I reached out a hand and turned him toward me. Bright eyes watched me from beneath matted hair.

“Hennan.” I ran my arms under the boy and careless of the dirt drew him to me. He proved even lighter than he looked. I stood without effort and turned to the gate, and found it closing as I faced it.

“No!” I lurched forward, still carrying the boy, boots slipping on the muck, but the jailer turned the key before I made it halfway. He offered me a grin through the bars. My sword-son stood unmoving in the middle of the central chamber. I watched him, flabbergasted for a moment, before realizing that technically the jailer hadn’t offered me any harm.

“Ta-Nam! Get me out of here!”

The sword-son stayed where he was. A heartbeat stretched into an age, and my stomach curled into a tight and heavy ball. Hennan started to feel like all the weight in the world.

“Ta-Nam! A sword-son never breaks his contract!” There aren’t many truths in the world, and fewer certainties. Death, taxes, and not much else. But the loyalty of a sword-son was a thing of legend . . .

“You broke our contract, my prince.” Ta-Nam bowed his head as though the deed sorrowed him. “You purchased me with paper. A man came to me a day ago and paid what was asked for my next contract though I told him I didn’t know when you would release the option on my service. I further told him that I would have to report our conversation and agreement to my master. At that point he explained I had no master as the Butarni bank would no longer honour your script since the Central Bank suspended your credit over charges of tax evasion. Without a master the contract I had just agreed became active.”

“What charges?” Corpus had said the same thing. “There haven’t been any damn charges. And what bastard do you work for now?”

Ta-Nam lifted his head to meet my gaze. “I work for Corpus Armand of the House Iron.” He reached into the small pack at his side and withdrew two wooden scroll cases. “The charges were delivered this morning. I received them in your name and kept them from you on Corpus’s instruction.”

“That’s my money!” I gestured toward the case in his hand. It didn’t seem to burden him as it did me.

“I told Corpus you had a case full of gold—”

“You can’t tell! Sword-sons don’t tell!” All around me heads lifted, turned toward the case in Ta-Nam’s grip. Pale and dirty hands gripped the bars across the mouths of the seven other arches, bright eyes staring.

“We had no contract, my prince.” Ta-Nam bowed his head once again and turned to go. Even in the depths of my despair I noted that he hadn’t dragged me out to strip the double florins from my body. Corpus hadn’t known about those and the sword-son had no more malice in him than any sharp edge that cuts both ways.