“So, this is the mad bitch?” the guard asked. Someone grunted behind him, and he tsked. “You’re telling me this scrawny thing unmanned an academy porter? I don’t believe it.”
“Two daggers, she had,” the second guard said. “Or that’s what I heard. Sharp, custom-made.”
“You sure she didn’t use a relic? Look at those twig-like wrists. There’s no way she can do damage, no matter how sharp the dagger.”
“They searched her thoroughly, especially when she said she’s a Sarumite. No relics. No lattices, either.”
They were talking about her as if she weren’t there. She heard the third man clatter about, and she realized he was emptying and rinsing her night bucket. The guards were there to make sure the prisoners didn’t misbehave or get any ideas when they saw their cell doors open.
“The year of our Lord 1818, and here I am, still learning new, astonishing things,” the first guard said sarcastically, then she heard him suck his teeth and spit. “Here, let me.”
She didn’t know what he was talking about, but then she felt lukewarm slop hit her chest, and a second later, a wooden bowl landed in her lap.
“Breakfast is served,” he laughed.
Seraphina jumped to her feet, hurt and angry, and now filthy with the foul-smelling gruel he’d thrown at her. The cell door closed and locked just as she reached it and wrapped her fingers around the bars. She half expected them to be crushed by the guard’s club, but he banged on the door next to hers instead.
“Creature, I got your favorite for you,” he told the prisoner mockingly. “Stand back.”
“Sir, excuse me.” Seraphina swallowed her pride and tried to be polite. “Have you heard from the academy? Did the headmaster send a letter?”
“Letter? Why would he send a letter?”
“The sergeant must’ve written to him by now. I told him–”
The guard’s booming laugh cut her off.
“He did, he did. But I’m afraid the sergeant’s letter was intercepted. Vanished, I hear. Nothing to be done about it.”
“What do you mean intercepted? By whom?”
“By the grace of God, our friend Hartmann was released from hospital. He’s recovering nicely, though over a few drinks at the tavern, he confessed he’s having troubles with his wife. If she wants a divorce, that will be entirely your fault.”
He gently tapped the club against her cell door, making the iron bars vibrate in her grip. She clenched her jaw to suppress the scream that threatened to burst out. Intercepted. Vanished. So, the sergeant had believed her and sent a letter to Krähenstein, but the institution she’d devoted the better part of her life to would never learn she was alive and needed help as long as Hartmann had friends among the city watch. Despite what the turnkey had said the day before, some of them did drink in the same places.
“You have to–” she started.
“I have to finish my rounds,” the guard said. “That’s what I have to do.”
“Please...”
“She’s almost pretty when she begs,” he laughed.
They were done with the prisoner in the cell next to hers, the creature, as the guard had called him. Before moving on, the club hit his barred door, and the sound reverberated through the walls. It made Seraphina’s empty stomach flip painfully. All these harsh, sudden noises were meant as a form of torture. Since torture had been abolished by law in 1806, the guards felt rather disgruntled and on edge, so they found other ways to get a rise out of the convicts.
“Hear that, creature? She cut a man’s cock off. I think you two might become fast friends.” Then, turning to Seraphina: “You like castrating men, he likes eviscerating whores. You’ll have plenty to talk about while you await trial. But God is great, andGod is mighty, and you might just rot in here before your cases land on the magistrate’s desk.”
With one last bang of his club, he moved on to mock and goad the rest of the prisoners down the corridor.
Seraphina didn’t say anything. She let out a sob, but nothing more, slid down to the floor with her back against the bars, and hugged her knees to her chest. She shook her head over and over, not wanting to believe this was happening to her. Hartmann was well, and out of the hospital so fast. Of course he was. The garrison hospital must’ve had a few healing lattices, though most of them were sent to the front as soon as they were completed by a weaver’s skilled hands. All the lattices Matteo had made had gone to the field hospitals around Neuburg, the fortified town that had managed to keep the enemy and his army at bay for longer than anyone had expected or hoped. Matteo had been a master weaver, the only one the academy had had. She wondered if Krähenstein had managed to replace him.
Sounds coming from the cell next to hers made Seraphina stiffen and sit upright. There was shuffling, then a soft clatter, and she heard something metallic being pushed over the stone floor toward her cell. She didn’t move a muscle.
“Water,” the man said. “I didn’t see them give you a bucket, or at least a cup to drink.”
His low, baritone voice seeped into her bones, reaching her marrow. She relaxed slightly, though she had no idea why she’d have this reaction to him. She remembered what the guard had said, that he was in for eviscerating whores.
“Thank you.”
