Page 64 of Crown of Ashes and Awe

I prayed they had better ideas than I had.

The chair scraped again. Slow footsteps came to my door. The small window opened, and a pair of blue eyes scowled at me. "It's getting cold. If I leave this open, you might get a little heat. But I don't want any trouble.”

"We haven't been fed today," I said.

"No. And you won't be. I'm sorry. Maybe tomorrow."

"At least tell me if it’s day or night."

"I'm to tell you nothing. But like I said,it is getting cold..."

"So, it's nighttime. Thank you for that."

He disappeared but the window remained open. I heard him do the same for Lennon, offer to leave her window open for a little warmth. To my surprise, she thanked him, though I knew she could keep herself warm just fine. I thought she'd still be looking for blood.

The guard moved across to Minkin. He spoke quietly, gently. I wondered if, in the dark, he thought she was a child. He asked if she was cold and offered her something through the window to eat. And I realized it was only Lennon and I who were being deprived.

Of course. We had rejected Ciro. We had to be punished for it. Or maybe he just wanted us to be good and weak before he came down to negotiate again.

I would eat my key before I weakened enough to ask for his mercy.

At least I hoped that was true as I stretched out on my cot again and tried to imagine the moon rising in the sky. Imagined the snow glowing in the darkness—anything to convince my body it was night, time to sleep.

Voices again. More of them. Thanks to my open window, I could hear them moving down the stairs. Mumbling. Vague encouragement. A few stuttered steps.

I pressed my face to the opening and tried to see the other end of the corridor, but I failed. All I could do was listen and guess. And what I guessed was that they had returned Griffon to our dungeon.

Lennon had judged the same and called out to him. "Griffon! Griffon, I'm here!"

A door slammed shut. Men shuffled back up the stairs and left us in silence.

"He's here, Lennon," Tearloch called, his voice muffled behind his own door. "He's weak, but he's all right. He says he is healing. Not to worry." I waited for him to call my name, to prove everything I remembered wasn’t just a dream. But he didn’t.

The guard, sitting on a chair beside Minkin’s door, practiced making knots with a short rope. He didn’t seem to mind the yelling.

After a few minutes of hearing nothing but the shushing of rope sliding against rope, Lennon whispered, “Asper, listen to me.”

“I’m here.”

The guard never looked up.

“He’s trying not to show his feelings to whomever might be listening, so they won’t be able to use you as leverage against each other. Do you understand?”

She meant Tearloch. “I understand.” Just the same, I couldn’t seem to move away from the door, couldn’t give up hope that Tearloch might call out again.

“I’d kill for a handful ofeminems.” She didn’t bother whispering now.

“Is that food?”

She laughed. “It depends on who you ask, but yes.” Then she described a nut covered in chocolate, then covered in a colorful and sweet coating.”

“What is chocolate?”

She gasped. “You mean you don’t have chocolate?” What she described next sounded delicious.

“We have something similar. Farcláid. They say they make delicious things with it in the king’s palace, but I’ve never tried it.” Then I explained where I’d lived all my life, with my master, and that no one had ever been willing to barter for any farcláid they might have been carrying. “Too precious.”

“Sounds like chocolate to me.”

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