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CHAPTER TWENTY

Corrick

I’m rarely called to the Hold when the sun is in the sky, and now it’s been twice in one week. It’s never a particularly pleasant place, but during the nights it’s usually cool, which keeps the odor manageable, and quiet, because even the most offensive criminals must sleep occasionally.

During the day, it’s hell.

“You really must do something about the smell,” Allisander says, a handkerchief masking his face as we walk through the gates.

Maybe it’s only hell because he’s here.

Or maybe it’s hell because I am. I should be in the palace. I should be watching over Tessa. I keep thinking of the way she tossed that glass of brandy at me, and I imagine her doing something similar to my brother.

It’s too easy to imagine. And despite all evidence to the contrary, I really am a lot more tolerant than Harristan is. Lord, Tessa.

“You haven’t said anything about the girl,” says Allisander.

The girl. I bristle at his dismissive tone, and it takes effort to hide it. The girl is brave. Brilliant. Strong. Compassionate. The girl does more for Kandala than the spoiled consul standing in front of me. “The young woman you assumed spent the night in my quarters?”

A guard steps forward to hold the door to the staircase.

“Well . . . ?yes,” says Allisander. “According to Arella, you were—”

“I know what Arella thinks I was doing, just as I know what you think I was doing.” I glare at him, and he has the grace to look surprised. “She was wrong. So are you.”

He stares at me over the handkerchief. “Rumors say she snuck into the palace to kill Harristan.”

There’s an undercurrent of concern to his tone that makes me wonder, just for a moment, if the tiniest spark of their friendship remains. But then he adds, “She could have been working with the smugglers I captured, and now you’ve allowed her access to the king.”

Ah. Of course. I keep my eyes forward and stride down the stairs. “She’d hardly be alive right now if that were true.”

He’s all but hissing at me behind his handkerchief. “Well, it’s certainly not commonplace for you to bring a smuggler to your room—”

“Consul, I hope you didn’t drag me to the Hold before breakfast for a discussion we could have had in the palace.” We reach the bottom, and I glance at him. I need him to stop digging for information about Tessa—at least until I can find out what she said to my brother. “Tell me about your prisoners.”

He huffs for a moment, like a discomfited toddler. “Well. They struck in the Wilds. We had six wagons full between Lissa’s shipment and my own. There were dozens of them, all at once.”

I stop short in the final hallway before the turn into the lowest level. A lone lantern hangs from the wall here, flickering shadows across Allisander’s cheeks. There isn’t much that could drag my thoughts away from Tessa, but that does it. “Dozens?” I say. “Your supply run was attacked by dozens?”

“Yes. Far more than the small pack you unearthed from Steel City.” He coughs, and he must be grimacing behind the handkerchief. “We couldn’t capture them all, of course. And lord knows how many parcels they were able to escape with—”

“You don’t keep an inventory?”

“Of course we do. But they set one of the wagons on fire—”

“On fire?”

“Yes. They had flaming arrows. Torches. They were organized, and they must have known we were coming. We just authorized this shipment two days ago, and because of its size, few people knew we were coming.” He makes a disgusted noise. “I knew those first eight wouldn’t be the end of it. There must be hundreds more, waiting to destroy our supply runs. They endanger all of Kandala, Corrick. They must be stopped.”

“I agree.” And I do. If Allisander and Lissa are spooked, they’ll stop making shipments at all. Or they’ll require the sectors to spend money and manpower they can’t spare to come get medicine themselves. I wonder if any of the prisoners were those who escaped during the riot. “I’ll question them. We’ll unearth what’s happening.”

“Good.”

We turn the corner. The smell is worse down here than usual. It’s quieter, too. For midmorning, I was expecting shouts and curses to be coming from the cells, but no one is talking. Four guards are stationed down here, and they nod to me, but they look . . . ?bored. I stop at the first set of bars and peer inside.

A young woman lies on the floor, facing the rear wall. I see brown hair first, in a messy pile beside her head. I’m so used to watching for Tessa among the smugglers that are dragged to the Hold, so for an instant, my stomach clenches. It’s not her. I know it’s not. It can’t be.

This woman doesn’t look quite right anyway. She’s older than Tessa, with beige skin a few shades darker. Her jaw is bruised heavily, her lips cracked and bleeding. A fly alights on her mouth and she doesn’t flinch—meaning she’s unconscious or asleep. One arm seems twisted at an unnatural angle.