I’d kill them for you. One by one.
Seraphina scoffed, then let heavy, tense silence fall between them. The day stretched on. There was nothing to do but listen to the regular cries and screams of the other prisoners, and shiver as the wind picked up, sending droplets of freezing rain through the barred window high above. The old man in the cell next to theirs started praying, and for a while, Seraphina listened to the cadence of his voice. She tried not to think too much. Thinking only made her feel more miserable. But with nothing else to do, her mind carried her back to the past no matter how hard she resisted. It was impossible to focus on the present, when the present was a freezing hell, or think about the future when, with every passing hour, she became more convinced she didn’t have one.
She was going to die here, wasn’t she? As long as the guards were on Hartmann’s side, they would never tell the sergeant what was happening here, that she’d been put in a cell with a man, that his letter to the academy had been intercepted. Even if the sergeant wrote another letter, Hartmann would take care of it. Who could she convince to send word to Headmaster Wolff at Krähenstein?
“Does the sergeant ever visit the prison?” she asked Rune.
“No. There was one time, when a man hanged himself, and the sergeant came to investigate and see if the guards had overlooked something. It turned out he’d ripped his blanket into strips, twisted them into a rope, and somehow managed to move the heavy cot under the window. He was a tall man, I heard, otherwise he wouldn’t have reached the bars to tie the rope around.”
“Jesus.”
“But that was the only time the sergeant came.”
“Damn it.”
So, that wasn’t an option. She was stuck, waiting for her trial, but trials took a long time. What if she escaped? The second the thought came to her, she huffed and shook her head. Only one week in prison, and she was already entertaining ridiculous thoughts. How was she going to survive a month? The winter?
She got up and started pacing her side of the cell. She heard Rune gasp at her sudden movement.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “My back is still to you.”
She heard him swallow hard. “And mine to you.”
This went on for a while. The old man stopped praying. From the way he was wheezing, Seraphina knew he’d fallen asleep. He always wheezed in his sleep, sometimes woke up coughing violently.
She focused her attention on each and every sound the prison made, which kept her from thinking about Saint Vivia’s Convent for a few minutes, about how much she missed Briar and how much she must’ve disappointed everyone when she’d left. What hurt most was that even if, by some insane miracle, she accomplished what she’d set out to do, she couldn’t return there. The sisters would never allow her back. She’d had a family – more real than her own family in London – and she’d made sure they’d never want to have anything to do with her again.
Because Seraphina had done more than run away from Saint Vivia’s. She’d stolen something, and they’d never forgive her for it.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a light tapping. She stopped and strained to understand what it meant. Rune was tapping on the floor, his fingers moving all at once, at first in a slow pattern, then a quicker one. It was precise, as if he was following a rhythm in his head.
“What are you doing?”
He stopped abruptly. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. But what are you doing?”
“Sometimes my fingers move on their own.”
She wanted to ask something else, but the corridor erupted in the usual chaos of the guards’ rounds. Seraphina pressed herself against the wall, facing it. She knew that trying to appeal to them again was futile, and it was better to make herself small, so they’d leave her alone. Across the cell, she heard Rune do the same, curling up in a corner, on the straw that had started to smell of rot.
“Seraphina Bell, you’re a popular girl,” Fischer said as he banged the wooden club against the cell’s door.
She heard the key turn in the lock, then someone reached inside and grabbed her by the arm. He pulled so hard that she lost her balance.
“Come on, now, don’t be difficult.” Koch’s voice.
He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her out into the corridor, then shoved her into the empty cell that had been hers. She let out a breath of relief. Finally, they’d come to their senses. Or maybe the sergeant had heard something and reminded them how completely inappropriate it was to put a woman in a cell with a man. Her relief was short lived, because a familiar voice entered her space, along with the stink of garlic and beer.
“The magistrate is expediting your case,” Hartmann said. “He recognized your cursed name.”
Seraphina’s lips trembled, but she couldn’t hold back.
“Cursed? I was one of the most important people in the resistance. The best shard technician the academy had. Of course, he recognized my name.”
Hartmann spat at her. His saliva hit her in the cheek.
“Important? You weren’t important. You were that weaver’s bitch. He kept you around because he liked your pretty cunt. Shard technicians are as common as beggars in the market square. Trust me, no one at Krähenstein missed you or even asked about you when you disappeared. They asked about Matteo da Siena, looked for him for months. Some haven’t given up hope to this day. But you? You’re no one.”
