Page 73 of Skysong

She was lying flat on her back, the ground hard and cold and uncomfortable beneath her. An attempt to sit up proved fruitless. The moment she moved, a fresh wave of agony flooded through her, strong and sickly. She retched, but there was nothing in her stomach to bring up. When was the last time she had eaten?

A hand on her shoulder gently eased her back. ‘Hey, hey – slow down there. Don’t try to move. It’s all right.’

Andala tried to breathe deeply. Kitt was right next to her. He helped prop her half-upright against the stone wall.

‘Where are we?’ she asked when the nauseating pain had receded enough to allow her to talk.

‘We’re in the dungeons.’

‘The dungeons—?’

‘It’s all right,’ Kitt repeated. ‘They brought all of us down here together and split us up. I managed to get you and me into the same cell, away from most of the others.’

‘Are you hurt?’

‘I’m fine. Nothing as bad as what happened to you.’ Andala could almost hear him cringe. ‘How’s your head?’

She had the sudden, mad urge to laugh, but the thought of the stabbing pain it would cause helped her stifle it. ‘As days go,’ she murmured instead, ‘I can’t say I’ve had many that are worse.’261

Kitt chuckled, then fell silent. ‘I’m sorry this happened, Andala.’

‘It’s not your fault.’It’smine,she thought but did not say.

‘It is, though. In a way.’

Andala frowned. Even that slight gesture shot a spike through her temples. ‘What do you mean?’

A sigh. ‘If I hadn’t replaced Oriane with the replica … We wouldn’t be in this mess.’

‘Kitt,’ she breathed. ‘Where is she?’

‘Safe,’ he replied, dropping his voice to barely a whisper. ‘She’s … hidden. Somewhere secure.’

Somebody huffed a brief laugh. A voice nearby said, ‘Don’t hold back on my behalf. It doesn’t really matter if I know the details of what you’ve done anymore, does it?’

Andala fought the urge to shoot upright. There was someone else in the cell. And she recognised the voice.

Was thekingin there beside them, locked in his own dungeons like a criminal?

‘Don’t worry.’ Yes – it was Tomas, no doubt. She heard shuffling and scraping; he seemed to be moving closer to the corner where she and Kitt were. ‘I’m not angry with you, Kitt. Much as you might think what has happened is your fault, there’s no question about where the blame lies.’

‘Tomas—’ Kitt began hesitantly.

‘No,’ the king interrupted. His tone dripped bitterness, anger, but not directed at Kitt. ‘You aren’t the one whose own seneschal staged a coup in order to steal the most valuable thing in the world away from him. You aren’t the one who imprisoned that valuable thing in the first place, and made the world pay the price for having done so.’

Andala wondered if Tomas knew there was a chance others would hear him. There were at least a handful of people down here, from262what Andala could tell by the chorus of muttering voices – none in the same cell as them, at least, but in others close by. The only walls were at the back of the cells; they were otherwise separated by bars and nothing else. Surely a king would not risk his subjects hearing him speak in such a way. But he did not seem to care. Or perhaps it was easier to give voice to such things in the dark.

‘How did you do it, incidentally?’ Tomas went on. ‘The false lark.’

Kitt hesitated. ‘I built a frame, and incorporated mechanics to make it move before I—’

‘No, no, not the thing itself,’ Tomas cut in. ‘You’re the most brilliant man I know, Kitt. I’m not at all surprised that you managed to build such a wonder with your own hands. Iamsurprised that you managed to sneak it past everybody in that room.’

‘Oh.’ Kitt sounded sheepish. ‘Well, I … To be honest, it isn’t something I’m proud of. Talk was flying about what Terault wanted to do with Oriane, and I – well, I was desperate. So I mixed up a serum – one that causes severe confusion if you take so much as a single sniff, but wears off after a while and leaves no memory of what happened. And I plugged my own nose and went in there, wafting it about as I passed all the guards … They were all so disoriented that I had no trouble walking in with the decoy and walking out with Oriane tucked into my jacket.’ There was a pause, then Kitt said again, ‘I’m not proud of it. I’ve never done anything like that before.’

Andala didn’t know what to say. It was indeed unlike Kitt to have used his medical knowledge in such a way. He was the gentlest man she knew, and it had to have been difficult for him to put aside his principles to do this. It touched her to know how much Kitt cared about Oriane.

‘And the real skylark?’ King Tomas asked.263

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