Текст книги "The Burning Sky"

Автор книги: Sherry Thomas

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Before the menace in her eyes, Titus wanted to quail as Alectus did. “Any time, you said,” he forced himself to speak. “And you have already inconvenienced me greatly with your demands upon mytime.”

“You are young and headstrong, Your Highness, and your demands ill-considered. Let us have no more of this foolishness.”

Any sane person would have backed away. But he had no choice. The blood oath bound him to do his utmost. And utmost, of course, was synonymous with suicidal.

“I see I should have expected someone of your particular . . . background to display such untrustworthiness.” The Inquisitor’s teeth clenched at Titus’s reference to her forger parents. “I have correspondingly changed my mind about speaking to you in private.”

He walked away and approached a trio of young beauty witches. “I see all the most beautiful women present tonight are already acquainted with one another.”

The three beauty witches exchanged looks among themselves. The apparent leader of the group smiled at Titus. “You are a very handsome stranger, sir. But we really are after the prince.”

“That conceited prick? You are lucky he is too full of himself to notice you. Can you imagine the absolute bore he would be?”

“I wouldn’t know about that, but you, Your H—I mean, sir, are anything but a bore.”

He lifted a curl of her dark hair, feeling nothing of its texture, aware only of the force of the Inquisitor’s anger, like needles upon his back. “Let me guess, your name is Aphrodite, after the goddess of love.”

She laughed softly. “Excellent guess, sir, but it’s Alcyone.”

“A celestial nymph, I like that.” He turned to one of her friends. “And you must be a Helen, the one mortal woman as beautiful as any goddess.”

“Alas, I’m only a Rhea.”

“Daughter of Earth and Sky, even better. And you,” he said to the third beauty witch, “a Persephone who so overwhelms a god with desire that he is driven to abduction.”

All the girls laughed. “That is indeed her name,” said Alcyone. “Well done, sir.”

“I am never wrong in these matters.”

“May I ask, sir,” ventured Persephone, “why do you have a canary with you?”

“Miss Buttercup? She is an exceptional judge of character. Has she made a peep since you welcomed me into your group?”

“No, she hasn’t.”

“Then you have her approval. Ah, I see from Miss Alcyone’s expression that she sees a gorgon. Now watch, Miss Buttercup is turning around. She will lay eyes on the gorgon, and she will express her disapproval.”

Fairfax issued a series of furious peeps. Was she warning him that he had gone too far?

“Your Highness,” said the Inquisitor directly behind him.

Her tone. His stomach roiled—she was livid.

The beauty witches all curtsied. He did not turn around. “I trust you can see I am busy, Madam Inquisitor.”

“I have changed my mind. Shall we to the Inquisitory?”

It was the last place he wanted to go. He hoped Fairfax was happy.

“My apologies, ladies,” he said to the beauty witches. “I must desert you for a short time. I hope you are not leaving immediately.”

He did not hear what they said in return.

It was time for his first Inquisition.

CHAPTER 15

BEING A BIRD GAVE IOLANTHE the freedom to look anywhere she liked. What she found out was that everyone watched them. Him.

At first she put it down to his rank and his attire—his deep-blue overrobe, heavily embroidered with silver thread, was magnificent. But this was an occasion that overflowed with magnificent clothes on men and women of superior rank. And the way they looked at him, footmen and prime minister, serving maids and baronesses alike, it was as if he’d cast a spell on them.

He had Presence.

The moment he stepped off his chariot, it was obvious that he was no ordinary adolescent. He was rude and inaccessible, but he exuded an enigmatic charisma that could not be ignored.

He would never convince Atlantis—or anyone for that matter—to take him lightly.

Perhaps he knew that. His heart pounded next to her—he’d put her inside his overrobe for the trip to the Inquisitory. The tunic he wore beneath the overrobe was of very fine silk, redolent of the herbs with which it had been stored, warm with the heat of his body.

She burrowed deeper against him.

“I will keep you safe,” he murmured.

He meant it.

As long as he was safe, she was safe.

But how long would he remain safe?

Titus drove one of Alectus’s pegasus-drawn chariots—the phoenixes were too sensitive to be brought near a place as sinister as the Inquisitory. Lowridge, his captain of the guards, and six soldiers from the castle rode behind him, each on a white pegasus.

Night had fallen. All the streetlamps and houses had been lit, which only emphasized the dark, desolate stretches of quick pine. The column of red smoke that marked the location of the Inquisitory glowed bright and eerie, a display of power that dominated the skyline night and day.

The original Inquisitory had been lleveled during the January Uprising. Since its rebuilding, security had been airtight. The Inquisitor received no callers and gave no parties. The only way to get in, it was sometimes said, was to be dragged in.

The pair of pegasi that pulled Titus’s borrowed chariot certainly wanted to bolt—almost as much as he did. One could not fly over territory under the Inquisitor’s direct control; once they crossed its boundary, the pegasi had to trot on the ground. They whinnied, shied, and slapped each other with their tough wings. Titus cracked the whip near their ears to stop their jumpy antics.

Would that all heneeded was a not-quite-lashing to pull himself together.

The new Inquisitory was a circular structure, the exterior one solid black wall, unbroken by a single window. Three sets of heavy gates led to an enclosed courtyard enveloped by an uncomfortably red-tinted light.

The Inquisitor’s second in command, Baslan, was on hand to greet Titus. Titus could not decide whether he ought to be happy about the Inquisitor’s absence or frightened that she was even now preparing for his Inquisition.

He tossed aside his reins and froze. Not ten feet from where he had pulled his chariot to a stop, a human skeleton poked out of the ground; the bony remains of its hand, the tips of the phalanges dark red, reached skyward as if seeking help from above.

“Interest choice of decoration,” he said, blood roaring in his ears.

“Half of the courtyard has been allowed to remain in ruins—a reminder for the servants of Atlantis to stay ever vigilant,” answered Baslan.

The ruined half was pockmarked and strewn with blasted chunks of wall and broken pieces of glass that glittered red in the light. There were no other human skeletons, but Titus saw a dog skeleton and the top half of a doll, which made him recoil until he realized it was not a mutilated baby.

At the center of the courtyard stood a hundred-foot-tall tower. From the top of the tower, red smoke billowed.

Titus exhaled with relief when their path at last led away from the courtyard into the building. He stripped off his driving gloves. His palms were damp with perspiration.

They descended immediately; the aboveground rooms were obviously too good to waste on prisoners. The air below was musty, as was usually the case for subterranean interiors, but every surface was scrupulously clean.

All the hygienic measures in the world, however, could not diminish the oppressiveness of the place. With every step he took, the walls seemed to close in another inch. The air grew warmer and denser. It suffocated.

Three flights down, a desire to flee seized him. Thousands and thousands of mages had been held here in the first few years after the January Uprising. No one knew what had happened to them. But their despair had seeped into the very walls. Invisible filaments of it curled around Titus’s ankles, driving chills up his tendons.

Three more flights down they emerged into a large circular space with eight corridors leading from it. The corridor they followed went on for a hundred and fifty feet. There were no bars, only solid walls and steel doors that were far too close together.

The cells could not have been more than four feet wide.

Baslan stopped halfway down the corridor. With a tap of his hand, a narrow section of the wall turned transparent. A small, dimly lit cell appeared before them, empty except for a thin cot on the stone floor. A woman sat on the cot, sobbing—the housebreaker.

“Rise,” proclaimed Lowridge, as his subordinates clicked their heels smartly. “You are in the presence of the Master of the Domain, His Serene Highness Titus the Seventh.”

The woman looked up in shock. Then contempt. She spat. “You lie!”

This amused Titus, if grimly. “Can she see us?”

“No, Your Highness,” answered Baslan. “The transparency is only one way.”

“Who is she?”

“Her name is Nettle Oakbluff. She is the registrar of Little Grind-on-Woe.”

Titus addressed the woman. “Why are you here?”

“I shouldn’t be!” the woman cried. “I was trying to help Atlantis. I was trying to get them the girl!”

Titus glanced at Baslan, whose expression remained perfectly composed.

“You are a subject of the Domain. Why do you seek to help Atlantis?”

“There is money in it.” Obviously a great deal of truth serum still flowed through the woman’s veins. “I overheard my in-laws-to-be talking about it all hush-hush. They said Atlantis was itching for a really powerful elemental mage and that the agent who brought in this mage stood to gain a huge reward.”

“And have you received said reward?”

Nettle Oakbluff blew her nose into a handkerchief. “No. All I got for my trouble is hours and hours of questioning. I want gold. I want servants. I want a villa overlooking the ocean in Delamer.”

Her voice rose. “Do you hear me, Atlantis? You owe me that reward. If it weren’t for me, Iolanthe Seabourne and her guardian would have disappeared without a trace. You owe me!”

She struggled to her feet. “You can’t keep me here forever. My in-laws-to-be are important people. Oh, Fortune take pity on me, the wedding! Someone tell me what happened to the wedding. I need my daughter to marry the Greymoors’ son and I demand—”

“She seems in fine fettle,” Titus said to Baslan. “Next.”

The wall was instantly opaque and soundproof, cutting off Nettle Oakbluff mid-tirade.

They walked some fifty feet down the corridor. The next cell Baslan revealed was similarly bare. A man sat on the cot, his back against the wall. He was unshaven, thinner and older than Titus remembered. But there was no question: he was Fairfax’s guardian.

Titus took Fairfax out of the folds of his overrobe, keeping a tight grip on her tiny body. His other hand rested against the pocket where his wand was concealed. No one was going to snatch her from him—not without a fight to the death.

“I want him to see whom he is speaking to,” Titus ordered. “I will not have another subject of mine think it is permissible to sit in my presence.”

Reluctantly, Baslan complied.

Horatio Haywood blinked at the influx of light. He squinted at his visitors. There was apprehension in his eyes, but not yet the instinctive, cringing fear of the tortured.

“Rise,” Lowridge again proclaimed. “You are in the presence of the Master of the Domain, His Serene Highness Titus the Seventh.”

Haywood blinked again, rose unsteadily to his feet, and bowed. Only to lose his balance and stumble sideways into the wall. Fairfax was very still in Titus’s hand, but her claws dug into his palm, and her heart hammered beneath the warm down of her chest.

Titus asked for Haywood’s name, age, and occupation. Haywood answered obediently, a hint of hoarseness to his voice.

“How have you spent your time since your arrival at the Inquisitory?”

“I was hit with a paralysis curse before I was brought here and recovered only this morning. Since then I have been answering questions.”

“Do you know why you are being held here?”

Haywood glanced at Baslan. “The Inquisitor is interested in the whereabouts of my ward.”

“Certain parties in the know told me that your ward is nowhere to be found.”

Was it Titus’s imagination or did Haywood relax almost imperceptibly? His shoulders did not seem as tightly hunched. “I was unconscious, sire, and did not witness her escape.”

“What was the means of her escape, exactly?”

“A pair of linked trunk portals that can be used only once, going only one way.”

“Going where?”

“I do not know, sire.”

“How do you know the other trunk is not buried at the bottom of the ocean?”

Haywood gripped his hands together. “I trust it is not. It is my understanding that it leads to safety, not calamity.”

It had very nearly led to calamity.

Titus made an exasperated sound. “Not very productive to question you, is it?”

“There are many things I cannot recall, sire.”

“This much memory erasure would cause undesirable side effects. You seem not to suffer from them. Did you entrust your memories to a memory keeper then?”

Haywood jolted only slightly. The Inquisitor must have already asked him the same question. “It would appear so, sire, though I cannot recall who, or when.”

“But you know why.”

“To keep my ward safe.”

“I had no idea Atlantis was in need of a great elemental mage, and I should know these things. How did youknow?”

“Someone told me. But I can’t remember who.”

There was frustration in Haywood’s voice, but also relief. The sacrifice of his memories had not been in vain: he could not betray anyone in his ignorance.

“Was it her parents who told you?”

“I cannot recall,” said Haywood.

“Are you her father?”

Fairfax jerked at his question.

“I am not, but I love her like one. Someone please tell her to stay away and not ever come near the Inquisitory. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep her safe. I—”

The wall turned opaque. “Your Highness,” Baslan said smoothly. “We must not keep Her Excellency waiting.”

The prince held her tight, as if afraid she might do something stupid.

She wouldn’t, not after all the sacrifices Master Haywood had made. And certainly not after his most recent pleas from inside the cell.

But for the first time she regretted that she was not yet a great elemental mage. She would tear the Inquisitory from its foundations and crush its walls into powder.

The prince stroked the feathers of her head and back. She wished he would put her back into his overrobe. She wanted to crawl someplace warm and dark and not come out for a very long time.

She was barely aware that they’d stopped again. The captain of the prince’s guards once more proclaimed the presence of their sovereign.

“Who are you?” the prince asked.

“Rosemary Needles, sire,” answered a trembling voice.

Iolanthe nearly jumped out of the prince’s hand. Mrs. Needles?

It was indeed kind, pink-cheeked Mrs. Needles, her face pressed against the transparent wall, a face at once frightened and hopeful.

“Why are you here?”

“I cleaned and cooked for Master Haywood and Miss Seabourne. But I’m only a day maid. I’ve never lived in their house, and I don’t know any of their secrets!”

The prince glanced at Baslan. “Clutching at straws?”

“Straws sometimes lead to other straws,” said the Atlantean.

“Please, sire, please,” cried Mrs. Needles. “My daughter is about to have a baby. I don’t want to die without seeing my grandchild. And I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in this place!”

Iolanthe turned cold. What had the prince said? Friendship is untenable for people in our position. Either we suffer for it, or our friends suffer for it.

And Mrs. Needles wasn’t even a friend, only a woman unfortunate enough to need the money cooking and cleaning for the schoolmaster would bring.

Mrs. Needles fell to her knees. “Please, sire, please help me get out of here.”

“I will see what I can do,” said the prince.

Tears gushed down Mrs. Needles’s face. “Thank you, Your Highness. Thank you! May Fortune shield and protect you wherever you go!”

The wall turned opaque; they began the long climb up. Iolanthe trembled all the way to the surface.

“Is there time to admire the Fire of Atlantis?” asked Titus, as they reemerged into the courtyard.

“I’m afraid not, Your Highness,” said Baslan. “Her Excellency is already waiting.”

Precisely what Titus did not want to hear.

They crossed the courtyard. Before the heavy doors of the Inquisition Chamber, Lowridge and the guards were allowed to go no farther. Only Titus was conducted inside the enormous, barely lit hall—mind mages performed best in shadowy places.

The Inquisitor awaited, her pale face almost glowing, as if her skin were phosphorescent. From fifty feet away, he sensed her anticipation. A predator ready to strike; a hunter who had at last closed in on her quarry.

Cold skittered down his spine. It seemed the Inquisitor was determined to produce her finest work tonight.

As he approached her, she indicated the desk and two chairs beside her, the only pieces of furniture in the cavernous space. The two chairs were on opposite sides of the desk, one chair low and plain, the other high and elaborate. Either Titus chose the chair denoting greater status, and gave the Inquisitor yet another reason to bring him down a peg, or he submitted to the reality of the situation, selected the lesser chair, and endured the interview being looked down upon by the Inquisitor.

His solution was to step onto the lesser chair and perch on its back. Fortunately, the top of the back was flat. Had it had a few finials, like the dining chairs in which Mrs. Dawlish and Mrs. Hancock sat, he would have had to settle for sitting on the armrest, which would not give nearly the same jaunty, careless impression.

The Inquisitor frowned. Titus had ceded her the greater chair, but now he had the advantage of height.

She sat down and placed her hands, laced together, on top of the desk.

He drew a deep breath. And so it begins.

“Now, Your Highness, what have you been doing with Iolanthe Seabourne?”

He had prepared for this exact question, but still it jolted, as if he had gripped a live wire. “You mean the missing elemental mage you are looking for?”

“Last time we met, you did not believe she was an elemental mage.”

“Lady Callista told me Atlantis is seeking her with all its might,” Titus said with as much breeziness as he could muster. “She even encouraged me to look for her, since the girl is, after all, a subject of mine.”

The Inquisitor ignored his insinuation. “You were at the village of Little-Grind-on-Woe immediately after the lightning. After your visit, you changed your plans and left for England half a day earlier than originally scheduled. And when you arrived there, instead of heading directly to your school, you went to London, to a hotel where you maintained a suite of rooms as Mr. Alistair McComb, from which place you departed just as abruptly. Care to explain your movements, Your Highness?”

He wanted to taunt her. And where was I between the time I arrived in London and the time I arrived at the hotel? Care to tell me that also?

“I see you are fixated on the least of my doings,” he said. “Very well, my abrupt departure from the Domain is easily enough explained: I am not at your beck and call, Madam Inquisitor. You cannot simply say to me, ‘May I call on you this evening, Your Highness, to discuss what you have seen?’”

The Inquisitor thinned her lips.

“Besides, if you had taken the time to inquire from my attendants, you would have learned that I had decided to go back to school at an earlier time, beforethe lightning came down.

“Now, the hotel suite. I am a young man and have needs that must be met. Since that slum of a school Atlantis so strenuously recommended does not allow for such activities, I keep a place outside of school. As for why I left, I cannot imagine why I should remain once the deed is done.”

“And where was your accomplice in . . . the deed?”

“Left before I did. No need for her presence once she had served her purpose.”

“There was no report of anyone coming or going.”

Of course not, since she left with me.

This time he had to swallow the words as they rose on his tongue.

“Were you watching all the service doors? A large hotel has many.”

“Where did you find her?”

In a certain house in Little-Grind-on-Woe. Very well suited to wielding lightning, that girl.

“In a certain—”

What was the matter with him? He was an accomplished liar. Truth should never approach his lips.

“—district of London. Have you ever been to London, Madam Inquisitor? There are nasty parts that teem with girls who must make a living on their backs. The bargains to be had there, you have no idea.” He rubbed his thumb across his chin. “And frankly, after my encounter with you, I was in the mood to punish someone.”

A small muscle leaped at the corner of the Inquisitor’s eye. “I see,” she said. “Your Highness gives precocity a whole new definition.”

Quite the opposite. I cannot afford to get close to anyone. And Fairfax will never have me now, will she?

Alarm pulsed through him. What wasthe matter? Why was he overwhelmed with the need to confess?

Truth serum. He had been given a dose of truth serum. But how? He had taken nothing at the gala, not even Aramia’s snapberry punch.

He might not have ingested Aramia’s snapberry punch, but he had most certainly touched the glass—held it in his hand for far longer than he would have, had someone else offered him that glass. The glass had not been ice-cold, as he had thought—he would have realized it had he actually taken a sip of the punch itself. The coldness had come from a gel brushed onto the outside of the glass, and the truth serum had made its way into him via his skin.

Thatwas what Fairfax, pecking at him, had tried to warn him about.

He dreaded being slipped truth serum, so much so that he never took anything but water at the meals Mrs. Dawlish provided and rarely drank tea he hadn’t prepared with his own hands. He even practiced telling lies while under the influence of truth serum. One drop. Tell a lie. Two drops. Another lie. Three drops. Keep lying.

But he had never suspected Aramia. She was the good one, gentle and self-effacing, tolerant, eager to please.

In hindsight everything was blindingly obvious. She longed for her mother’s approval. If she couldn’t be beautiful, she could still exploit Titus’s guilt and make herself useful. She had said as much, had she not? He had felt not the least tingle of alarm, only sympathy so sharp it hurt.

Friendship is untenable for people in our position,he had told Fairfax. Had he thought it applied only to Fairfax?

The Inquisitor stared at him. “Your Highness, where is Iolanthe Seabourne?”

Right here in this room.

He was on guard, very, very much on guard. Yet he still felt his lips part and form the shape necessary to pronounce the first syllable of the truth. “I thought we had already established that I have neither interest in nor knowledge of your elemental mage.”

“Why are you protecting her, Your Highness?”

Because she is mine. You will have her over my dead body.

“Because—”

He yanked himself from the precipice. A sharp pain slashed through his head, nearly tumbling him off his perch on the chair. He righted himself; the chair wobbled with his effort. “Because I have nothing better to do than run afoul of Atlantis, apparently?”

The Inquisitor’s brow knitted.

“There is something you should know about me, Madam Inquisitor. I do not give a damn for anyone except myself. I dislike Atlantis. I despise you. But I am not going to harm a hair on my head over mere irritants such as yourself. Why should I care whether you find the girl or not? No matter what happens, I am still the Master of the Domain.”

The words hurt. His throat burned. The inside of his mouth felt as if he had been chewing nails. And the pain in his head distorted the vision in his left eye.

The Inquisitor considered him. Gazing into her eyes was like looking at blood running down the street. “You mentioned Lady Callista a minute ago, Your Highness. I’m sure you are aware that Lady Callista and your late mother were close friends. Do you know what Lady Callista told me just after your coronation? She said your mother fancied herself a seer.”

Titus swallowed with difficulty. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“One of the things Princess Ariadne predicted was that I would be the Inquisitor of the Domain.”

“You are,” said Titus.

The Inquisitor smiled. “I am, but Her Highness played a crucial part.”

Titus narrowed his eyes. He had never heard anything of the sort.

“About eighteen years ago, a new Inquisitor named Hyas was appointed to the Domain. He was young, energetic, outstandingly capable, and superbly loyal to the Lord High Commander. The Lord High Commander couldn’t have been more pleased with his performance. It seemed to everyone that Hyas was set for a long tenure.

“But three years into his appointment, he was abruptly dismissed. No one knew why—we serve at the Lord High Commander’s pleasure. His replacement, Zeuxippe, was just as skilled and loyal. She held the post for only eighteen months, her removal no less abrupt and unceremonious. After that, I was promoted.”

“For years, I remained as puzzled as everyone else concerning the events that led to my appointment. Yesterday I had an audience with the Lord High Commander. While I was in Atlantis, I called on my two predecessors and persuaded them to tell me their stories.”

Titus made no comment on her “persuasion.”

“Hyas was dismissed on charges of graft and corruption. He strenuously protested his innocence, but as some of the greatest treasures of the House of Elberon were found in his keeping, his objections fell on deaf ears. Zeuxippe’s tale was even more ignominious, if that was possible. She was accused of improper advances against the Princess Ariadne.

“It was a pernicious charge. It destroyed not only Zeuxippe’s career, but also her personal happiness: the love of her life left her after learning of the accusations. Now I am cynical—if mages were honest, there would be no need for Inquisitions. But I came away convinced of both Hyas’s and Zeuxippe’s innocence in their respective debacles. Which led me to the only conclusion possible, that Princess Ariadne was a deluded madwoman willing to do anything to make her so-called prophecies come true.”

Titus leaped off his chair. “I did not come here to listen to such drivel.”

He was furious. He could only hope his fury was sufficient to mask his dismay.

Everything– everything—rested on the accuracy of his mother’s visions. If she had been a fraud who cheated to fulfill her prophecies—he could not even follow the thought to its logical conclusion.

The Inquisitor smiled slightly. “Lady Callista also told me that when they were children, Her Highness had a vision that one day she would die at the hand of her own father.”

He blenched. His mother’s death left wounds that had yet to heal. The Inquisitor was tearing off the scabs one by one.

“The common mage believes Her Highness’s death to be the result of illness—her health had always been delicate and her passing at age twenty-seven unexpectedly early, but not implausible. You and I, however, both know that Prince Gaius, to demonstrate his desire to keep peace with Atlantis, executed Her Highness himself as a gesture of goodwill and submission. But now I wonder if Her Highness didn’t participate in the uprising with an eye toward being punished, so that she could preserve the integrity of her prophecy.”

He wanted to shout that his mother had never enjoyed her gift—that it had been a crushing burden. But did hebelieve it?

The Inquisitor smiled again. “I can’t help but think what you are doing now has something to do with Princess Ariadne’s wishes. Did she predict some magnificent destiny for you that would require you to risk life and liberty? Because as you said, Your Highness, you are too sensible a young man. I cannot believe you would throw away the best years of your life on your own initiative.”

His heart pounded—from more than the upheaval of the Inquisitor’s words. There was the truth serum, punishing him for not giving in to it, for not telling everything the Inquisitor wished to know. But there was something else also. Something that made him dizzy. He grabbed the back of the chair and looked at the Inquisitor.

“You should have been a playwright, Madam Inquisitor. Our theaters suffer from a shortage of sensational plots.”

Her eyes locked onto his. “Such a loyal son. Was she as loyal to you? Or did she see you as but a means to an end?”

He hardened his grip so his hands would not shake. “You ascribe far too many motives to a simple woman. My mother was neither clever nor scheming. And she was nowhere near ruthless enough to use her only child as a pawn in some grand chess match with destiny.”

“Are you sure?”

His head hurt, as if someone had scored his brain with broken glass. But nothing hurt as much as the possibility that his mother might have orphaned him to prove herself right.

Wrong. Something would hurt more: the idea that she was not yet done proving herself right, that from beyond the grave she was still manipulating Titus to justify the choices she had made in life.

“I am as sure as you are of Lady Callista’s truthfulness.”

“But you are not. I can see you are not. Her arrant disregard injures you. And why shouldn’t you be distressed and indignant? A son’s love for his mother ought not be perverted thus.”

Was that what his mother had done? Exploited and defiled his love for her not for a noble goal that was greater than their individual lives, but for the mere fixation of being right?

He had always been alone in this. And he had always struggled against his own private doubts. Now doubts and loneliness threatened to swallow him whole.

He wanted to say something. But the sensation in his head—as if the rim of his skull was liquefying. He swayed. His hands clutched tighter onto the chair.

This was how the Inquisitor operated, he dimly understood. A calm, collected mind was far more resistant to her probing, so she first destroyed her subjects’ composure. When they became distraught, she acted.

Her sobriquet among Atlanteans was the Starfish. A starfish inserted its stomach between the shells of a mussel and digested the poor bivalve in place. The Inquisitor did the same with the contents of a person’s memory: dissolving the boundaries of the poor sod’s mind, sucking all his scrambled recollections into her own, and sorting the wreckage at her leisure.