Page 125 of The Song Rising

When the drug wore off and my food arrived, I retrieved the paper and huddled close to the door, so I couldn’t be seen through the view-slot. When I was certain no Vigiles were about to come through, I turned my palm upward and tore the stitches from Styx’s cut with my teeth, then used the blood to scratch three words on to the paper.

COLCHICUM RHUBARB CHICKWEED

By the time the Vigile returned, the note was hidden. I was waterboarded for ignoring my meal.

Alsafi was fluent in the language of flowers.

Colchicum:my best days are gone.

Rhubarb:advice.

Chickweed:rendezvous.

It was evening by the time I was dragged out of the basement again.

Now it was dark, there was more activity in the Archon. We passed personalities I recognized from the news. Ministers in black suits, their crisp white shirts buttoned up high. Vigiles and their commandants. Soldiers. Scarlett Burnish’s little raconteurs in their red coats, tapping notes into their data pads, preparing to report their lies. Members of the Inquisitorial courts, gliding across the marble in steel-buckled shoes and hooded cloaks lined with white fur. Some stopped to stare and whisper.

Scarlett Burnish herself was at the end of one corridor, immaculately groomed as ever, holding a sheaf of documents. She wore a sculpted velvet dress with a complicated lace collar, and her hair rippled down to the small of her back, with the top layer braided like a net.

With her was a woman I vaguely remembered seeing on ScionEye. She was petite and sloe-eyed, possessed of a small, upturned nose and skin so pale it almost glowed. Deepest-brown hair was piled up on her head and threaded with rubies. Her gown, made of burgundy silk and ivory lace, fell in a series of tiers to the floor, leaving her collar bare for a necklace of rose gold and pear-shaped diamonds. The layers of the dress didn’t quite conceal the swell beneath.

“You look very well, Luce. How many months is it now?” Burnish was saying.

“It will be four soon.”

The accent nudged my memory. Luce Ménard Frère, spouse and adviser to the Grand Inquisitor of France.

“Oh, how lovely,” Burnish said, all smiles. “Are your other children looking forward to it?”

“The younger two are excited,” Frère said, laughing, “but Onésime is very unhappy. He always thinks a new baby will take hismamanaway from him. Of course, when Mylène was born, he was the first person to be cooing over her like a little bird . . .”

They stopped talking as my guards marched me past. Frère placed a hand on her abdomen and spoke in French to her bodyguards, who formed a barrier in front of her. Burnish raked me up and down with her eyes, bid farewell to Frère, and strode from the corridor.

I was led into a final passageway. Above two double doors at the end was a plaque spelling outINQUISITORIAL GALLERY. Just before we went through it, I sneaked the roll of paper from my shift to my hand.

The sheer size of the place was what hit me first. The floor was red marble, as it was in most of the building. An ornate ceiling stretched high above my head, where three vast chandeliers were laden with white candles.

The walls at either end of the hall were hung with official portraits of Grand Inquisitors from decades past, while the side walls were covered by frescoes. To my left was a giant, Renaissance-style depiction of the establishment of Scion, with James Ramsay MacDonald holding up the flag on the banks of the river and shouting to a euphoric audience; to my right, the first day of the Molly Riots. I stared up at the images of the gape-mouthed Irish, with their blood-dusted flags, and Scion’s soldiers, painted in lighter tones, who held out their hands as friends.ERIN TURNS FROM THE ANCHORread a plaque underneath.

A rosewood banqueting table was the centerpiece of this magnificent hall, and a grand piano stood in one corner. Nashira Sargas sat at one end of the table. Gomeisa, the other blood-sovereign, was on her right, in a high-collared black robe, staring at me with his sunken eyes. On her left was an empty chair, and beside that sat Alsafi Sualocin.

Jaxon sat opposite him, smiling, like we were having breakfast again. He couldn’t just leave me in peace.

Vigiles were stationed on both ends of the hall, armed with flux guns. I recognized a few of their faces from the penal colony. One of my guards lifted her staff and rapped it on the floor.

“Blood-sovereign, I present to you the prisoner, XX-59-40,” she said, “by order of the Commandant-at-Arms.”

“Seat her,” Nashira said.

I was taken past the other guests and deposited in a high-backed chair between her and Alsafi, with Gomeisa opposite. Another guard reached for his handcuffs. “Should we restrain the prisoner, Suzerain?”

“No need. 40 is aware that poor behavior here will result in additional time on the waterboard.”

“Yes, Suzerain.”

The close call stole my breath. If I had been cuffed, they would have seen the note.

I placed my hands in my lap, out of sight of the rest of the table. As the guards bowed and retreated, Nashira took a good look at me, as if she had forgotten what my face was like. Her corrupted aura was a smoking fire, suffocating mine. Her five spirits were all here, including the poltergeist I recognized from the scrimmage—the poltergeist that had tortured Warden.

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