When the lift came to a stop, Starling asked, “So, what is your plan?” When Cade just stared, Starling continued, “Surely you have a plan. You don’t just wander out onto this level and expect the Scarlet Guard to accept it, do you?”

“It will be like when you brought me down here before,” Cade said. “I am your prisoner. You are going to show me the witch again.”

“I suppose you could do worse but not much. They are not expecting us. No appointment has been made. It is irregular. And so is having the Guardian with us.”

Cade recognized that Starling was trying to sow doubt, though his observations were likely correct. There was nothing to be done about it.

“They will not question my presence,” the Guardian said.

“Not aloud,” Starling replied.

“They will not question my presence,” the Guardian repeated, “and you will not give them reason.”

Aside from Karigan, Cade did not think he could have better help than the Guardian. It was hard to remember at times he was a human being beneath the armor. He had a name. Karigan had called him “Fastion.”

“I will open the doors, and we will step out,” the Guardian said. “Then I will return the lift to Rider G’ladheon.”

The corridor was as gloomy and disheartening as Cade remembered, the turbines still churning away somewhere below them, the lighting dull. Four members of the Scarlet Guard awaited them.

“What is your business here?” one of the guards demanded.

When Starling did not reply immediately, the Guardian placed his armored hand on the Inquisitor’s shoulder.

“I am bringing this prisoner to see the witch once again. He needs further convincing.”

“You did not make an appointment,” the guard replied.

“I will remind you,” Starling said, almost sounding indignant, “that mine is an art, and art rarely recognizes the constraint of appointments.”

“Very well.” The guard did not sound happy, but he made no further protests. He and his compatriots glanced at the Eternal Guardian as he turned to send the lift back to Karigan, but as he said, they asked no questions.

Instead, two of the guards roughly grabbed Cade and dragged him down the corridor, through the antechamber, and to the cell door. A third grabbed a taper so they could see in the cell, and the fourth started the complicated process of unlocking all the locks. Cade glanced over his shoulder. Starling watched the proceedings with an unreadable expression. The Eternal Guardian returned to Starling’s side, his hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword. The Guardian did not carry firearms, Cade reminded himself, but the Scarlet Guard did, and the two shots he had left on Silk’s pistol were not going to be enough if they had to fight their way out.

It then occurred to him they were not going to get the witch out without a fight.

A stench seeping out into the corridor announced the opening of the cell door. The light of the taper revealed the painful sight of the witch chained just the same as Cade had seen her before, her flesh naked beneath layers of grime, old blood, and scars, and her lips sewn shut. Though he’d been expecting the sight, he still quailed from it. How could her guards be considered human?

“Now what?” Starling asked him. “There she is, now what?”

The four guards glanced at one another as if wondering if this was part of the Inquisitor’s technique. A smile strained against the stitches that held the witch’s lips closed.

It was the Eternal Guardian who answered. “Unchain her.”

Hands went to guns, but before the weapons could be drawn and fired, the Guardian’s sword hummed through the air in a blur. The guards were felled as wheat to a scythe, the Guardian’s blade shearing through flesh and bone as though they were nothing. His swordwork was spare and clean and astonishing. Cade looked down at the bodies in disbelief. The blood on the Guardian’s sword matched their uniforms.

The tip of the Guardian’s sword went to Starling’s throat. “Unchain her.”

Starling’s nose flared as if taking in the scent of blood. Without protest, he knelt beside one of the bodies to remove the key ring from a dead hand. Cade fetched a fresh taper to replace the one that had fallen with its guard, so they could once again see into the cell.

As Starling tried different keys in different locks of the witch’s chains, Cade sensed something new in her demeanor—not gratitude, not hope, not even triumph or anger, but power.

A DARKNESS IN HER MIND

The lift returned and after Karigan opened the doors, she ordered, “Get in.”

To her surprise, Silk obeyed without hesitation or argument. She followed in after him, closed the doors, and stepped up to the controls, recalling what Fastion had shown her. It was then she perceived, on the periphery of her vision, Dr. Silk’s mechanical hand striking down at her. She pivoted and blocked it with her staff. It clattered hard against the bonewood. For good measure, she brought the metal handle around and smashed his hand. His fingers jerked, spasmed, and curled. Tiny arcs of fire flared through his glove and sputtered across his knuckles. There was the smell of burning and melting.

Silk did not cry out in pain, but stared in disbelief at the smoke wisping up from his hand. “You broke it,” he said. “It does not work anymore.” He launched himself at her again. She sidestepped and tripped him. His fall caused the lift to bounce and shudder on its cables, and his specs skittered across the floor. She scooped them up.