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

“You’ve got the key. It got us out of one prison. It could get us into another.”

He had a point. A point I needed to counter. I mean, I could have just cuffed him to the floor and set off for the hills on my own. Lord knows a prince of Red March doesn’t have to answer to a child, a common-born child at that . . . a common-born, foreign child! But the fact was that somewhere along the line something had changed, perhaps it was some lingering damage that Baraqel had inflicted on me . . . but, damn it, I knew if I just left him behind it would start to niggle at me and leave me no peace, or at least not enough peace to properly enjoy myself. So, it seemed in my best interest to convince the little bastard to come with me.

“It’s not only a matter of keys, Hennan,” I began in a consoling tone. “There are other considerations. It’s not safe for a boy of your age. For a start the Dead King wants the key. We can’t hang around here, there are too many corpses, there’s too much for him to work with . . . cities are built on layer upon layer of dead people . . . it’s all that holds them up. And even if we made it to the right jail—”

“There are guards. A key won’t get you past the jailers.” The speaker unhooded her lantern close by, dazzling me. I scrambled back, blocked by the gate. My hands found Hennan and held him in front of me as some kind of small and ineffectual shield.

“Uh . . . ah . . . you have me at a disadvantage, madam.” I blinked and averted my gaze, trying to clear my eyes.

“You need to run, Jalan. Give me the key and the Dead King will follow it instead of you.” The voice seemed familiar.

“Kara?” I squinted through screwed up eyes. But the figure in front of me was small, a girl no older than Hennan, blond and pale, holding the lantern before her, her dress a simple thing of white linen, a servant’s garb.

“Give me the key and run. They’re out to get you, Jalan. You need to be safe in Vermillion.” The little girl held her hand out, palm up and open.

I blinked away tears, my eyes adjusting to the light. “What?” It didn’t make sense.

“Hennan can come with me.” She seemed frayed around the edges now, as if the shadows were nibbling at her. Frayed and . . . taller.

“No.” I gripped his shoulders tighter and he gasped, trying to twist loose. Something kept me unwilling to relinquish the boy.

“Come on, Jalan, this isn’t your place. You need to get away. You need to run.” The words had a cadence to them, a rhythm that got under my skin. I did need to get away—I did need to run. No argument there.

The girl seemed more of a memory now—I could still imagine her there, see the blueness of her eyes, but if I blinked I saw Kara holding the lantern, ragged and dirt-smeared.

“It’s just a glamour, a spell to fool the eye, shake it off, and look clear,” she said, and there she was, Kara, as if she’d never been anything else. “A casting to keep me from the Frauds’ Tower. Quick. We won’t have long, the dead are moving.” And still she kept her hand out.

Hennan wrenched free of my grip. I thought he would run into her arms. Hell, I would if I knew I’d get a nice protective hug. But he ran off into the night instead—the ungrateful bastard.

Kara glanced after him and shook her head in annoyance. “He’ll have to catch us up. We need to go now! Give me the key.”

“Can’t you just hide it again?” I didn’t want to give it up—it was the only thing of value I had left. Just maybe it might earn me enough credit with Grandmother to forgive the loss of Garyus’s ships to my creditors. Besides, Kara wanted it too much. A poker player learns the signs—whatever else she said the only thing that mattered to her was that I hand her the key. “Turn it back into a rune again so the dead can’t sense it.”

Kara shook her head. “I’d been working on that enchantment for a long time and it doesn’t last long if you keep moving. It’s a static charm. Besides, the glamour that’s been hiding me has exhausted the best of my strength.”

I blinked at her. “How do I even know you are Kara? You looked like a child a moment ago . . .” What might she look like in an hour? A sudden cold thought seized me. “You could be Skilfar! Maybe there never was a Kara.”

She laughed at that, not a particularly pleasant laugh it must be said. “Skilfar would have throttled you in your sleep a month back. The ability to suffer fools is a rare trait in our line.”

“Your line?”

“You’re not the only person to be a disappointment to their grandmother, Jalan.”