Right. The warden couldn’t allow bloodvoicers to communicate with prisoners or spy on the place. Cole leaned in. “See the crates?”
Kurtz glanced at them and frowned. “Thusk must be a regular patron. Wonder how much he makes off this place?”
Verdot led them to a wooden platform positioned at one end of a large grate in the ground. Prisoners lurked on the far side, jostling for a better view. Beneath the grate, faint movements hinted at something—or someone—below.
That must be the Prodotez where Kurtz had lived for so many years. Cole gestured toward it. “That what I think it is?”
“The Pit.” Kurtz retreated to the back of the platform. “Let’s do the show and get out of here, eh? I don’t like how?—”
“Hey, Kurtz!”
Kurtz’s head snapped up, eyes wide and unblinking.
“It’s the Chazir!” someone else hollered.
Kurtz set his lantern by his feet. “Of all the places to send a spy,” he muttered, “they pick the one place that already knows my face.”
Cole’s fingers were stiff as he tuned his lute. “Hopefully, we’ll learn enough from my uncle that we won’t need to come back.”
Kurtz grunted.
Out in the yard, Verdot shouted, “Circle up! On this side of the Pit if you want to see the show. Move it.”
Cole didn’t wait for Verdot to walk over and introduce them. He struck up “Woe to the Five,” hoping the ancient ballad might calm the crowd. Mistel stepped forward, poised despite the leers and crude remarks flying her way. The moment she sang, silence fell.
“Woe, woe, woe to the Five.
Woe, woe as they flee for their lives.
As the Father God grieves how they fail to believe,
Woe, woe to the Five.”
Her haunting voice cut through the noise like sunlight through frost. Cole grinned. He’d read the crowd right. But by the second verse, the jeers returned. Mistel held firm, though the tightness of her jaw and her clenched hands betrayed her unease.
Cole went straight into “The Messenger” next, hoping an upbeat tune would shift the mood. Some clapped or danced, but the rowdy ones only grew bolder with their remarks to Mistel. Zanna stalked forward, hands on her hips, and looked ready to beat some sense into them. That only provoked the men, who diverted their jeers to her.
A few shouted for silence, but a fight broke out, and guards started dragging prisoners away.
By the fourth song, some of the taunts from the Pit turned vile. One man clung to the grate, hanging by his fingers while somehow rattling the metal. Cole stopped mid-strum and glared down at the man, only then realizing the prisoner was perched on another man’s shoulders.
“If you don’t settle down, we’re going to leave,” Cole shouted.
“What do we care?” the man sneered. “If you want to give us a gift, pass down the girl.”
Howls of laughter erupted. Mistel’s smile trembled, but she held steady while singing the chorus of “Stars Above.”
Cole backed up from the grate until he could no longer see the men in the Pit. He scowled at Verdot. “This is our last song.”
Verdot crossed his arms. “You promised me an hour.”
Blazes. How were they supposed to last that long? Grinding his teeth, Cole played on. They didn’t have enough songs to fill an hour without singing those with royalist or religious themes, so he eventually played “I Bless my King,” “The Pawn Our King,” and “The Sparrow that Was a She.” He honestly didn’t notice a change in the rowdy crowd.
Ending with “Light of the World” turned out to be a mistake though. The verses dragged on, and the jeers gnawed at Cole’s nerves. When the last chord finally rang out, he stormed off the stage.
“We’re done,” he told Verdot. “Take us to my uncle now.”
Verdot hesitated, but at the band’s hard stares, he finally motioned for them to follow him toward a narrow doorway on the far side of the yard.
