The Librarian stood stricken. Behind him, Saskia and Nancy scrabbled through their pockets.
“We don’t have enough.” Saskia sprang into motion. “I’ll run back to the House of Foxes. Enough coin there for a bribe—to keep her from the cells, at least.”
The Boars almost had Emma to the door. Close up, a stink rolled off them: sweat-grimed leather, the undertone of old blood. The fox’s voice was a shriek in her mind.
hunters
they will kill
they will kill
“Emma!” The Sister was jogging alongside. “Say nothing. We will follow to the courtroom. But you must not—”
Emma could not hear the rest. The Boars shoved the Sister against the chamber door and dragged Emma backward. She bucked against their hold. No matter how she kicked, her feet only slithered across the smooth stone floor. On they went, through corridors hushed as a mausoleum.
Above her, the ceiling became dark, jagged rock. Twisted shapes cavorted among the cracks, carvings of trees and beasts warped by time. She recognized none of it, and knew she had no idea where they had brought her. If they released her, she would not even know which way to run. The growl in her throat died to a whine. The Boars pulled her on, deep into the underbelly of the Court.
CHAPTER 21
The audience chamber was more cavern than room. Whispers bounced and fractured on its uneven walls. The audience of clerks and courtiers was seated behind her. The Librarian, the Sister, and the fox maiden Nancy had been permitted to stand before the dais.
Emma looked up at the robed figure on the throne. The Judge’s hair was white, but his spine was straight and his face strangely unlined. He could have been twenty or two hundred. His eyes were uncompromising, intelligent, and a deep ruby red.
“Bring the fugitive for judgment.” His voice was the whisper of fingers over parchment.
The Boars seized Emma’s shoulders and muscled her up to the dais.
“My lord, she is no fugitive.” The Librarian’s voice wavered across the chamber.
The Judge lifted a finger, and the cavern fell silent. The Boars released Emma’s arms.
“It has been some time since we saw you in these halls, Librarian.You may speak in defense of this fox maiden, if you wish. The City has assigned no other.”
The Librarian seemed to shrink. “She fled her call to the Court only because she did not understand.”
A jeer came from the back of the cavern, where the audience sat.
“It was—She—There was no need to send a Boar for her, for such a small misstep—”
Emma watched with a failing heart as the Librarian stammered. Before the crowd, his wits were sand escaping an hourglass. One courtier pretended to fall asleep, snoring loudly for the amusement of her friends. Another took the peel of the fruit his servant had sliced for him and flung it at the Librarian’s back. Emma heard titters from the audience.
The Judge did not hurry the old man. Impassive, he heard the last of the Librarian’s plea.
“… and so, for the child, a pardon. Yes, yes. Pardon. So then, when she is safe, I can continue with my search. It is so lost, it is so…”
The Judge lifted a long, pale hand. “Your statement is heard. But her Oath is of no account. Delay or no, it would have come to pass. The Boars pursue her for a far greater offence. That of dishonoring a bargain.”
There was a ghastly silence. Then a seething hiss of whispers boiled from the audience behind her. Emma twisted. They looked alternately sickened or alight with malicious fascination. The Librarian’s face was horror itself.
Emma sketched the lines of morality in her new world as quickly as her brain would work. The Boar’s vicious pursuit of her in the mortal world was apparently allowable. The tailor’s attemptto steal her voice? An inconvenience to be brushed aside. But this crime was so serious it could hardly be spoken. Emma’s stomach clenched. They would expect a punishment for such a crime, that audience. She felt their hunger for it.
“This ‘Emma Curran’ is a fugitive: The full essence of her soul has already been promised in a contract. Yet here she stands, intact.”
“The full essence of her soul… My lord, you cannot mean—a full draining? The City could not allow…” The Librarian staggered where he stood.
The Sister strode forward to steady him. Her eyes flashed with righteous fury. “It would be barbarous. Drain the entirety of her soul? There would be nothing left of her. A shell. It is worse than death—what contract could call for this?”
The Judge’s voice sliced through the din. “Those are the terms of the bargain between the Night City and the Turnbulls.”
