She'd spent all afternoon being questioned. How well had she known Lord Bolor? What had they spoken about? Did she know where he was? Thanks to the memory spells she'd invoked the moment she realized the guards were coming for her, she'd been able to answer all their questions with bewildered innocence.

Now it was the middle of the night, and the guards had come to take her from her cell again. She was certain this did not bode well Worse, the memory spell had long since worn off. The guards delivered her into what was clearly a torture chamber: stone walls lit by the flickering orange firelight of bare torches on the walls, a table laid out with all manner of knives and pincers, what looked to be an ancient rack to stretch limbs until bones popped from their sockets. A cloaked figure stood in the shadowy corner of the room.

The guards pressed her into a chair, locked the manacles welded to the armrests into place around her wrists, and left the room.

Alone with the cloaked man in the corner, Jiarine began to shake as genuine terror set in. "P-please. I swear to you, I've told you all I know. Call a shei'dalin. Truthspeak me! I've nothing to hide."

"Such a convincing liar. My dear, it really is an exceptional talent. I almost believe you myself."

Jiarine froze. She knew that voice. She knew it as well as she knew her own. "M-master?”

The man in the corner threw back the hood of his cloak to reveal a face she knew. A face she had known and loved and hated since she was a foolish teenage girl who sold her soul to a handsome Mage in exchange for wealth and power.

Kolis Manza cocked his handsome face to one side and gave her the charming, slightly quizzical smile that had won her heart so long ago. "You know, I had almost forgotten how truly beautiful you are."

"Master Manza! Thank the gods you are alive."

His expression hardened instantly. “The gods had nothing to do with it, I promise you." He took a breath and forced another small smile, but this time she realized there was something different about him. A coldness to his eyes that hadn't existed before.

"M-master? Why are you here? Why did you have me brought here?"

"As it so happens, this is one of the few rooms in the prison with privacy wards woven into the stone. With a Mage on the loose, the Fey are scanning every fingerspan of the city, looking for magic that might give away Master Nour's position. But thanks to the construction of this room, any magic woven in here is undetectable outside these walls."

He sighed and walked towards her. "You see, Jiarine, in exposing himself, Nour has cast the light of suspicion upon you as well. Given our past association . . . and my upcoming return to court, this will not do. Your integrity must be beyond reproach so that no hint of suspicion should fall on me. Unfortunately, no matter how skilled a liar you are, there are ways to elicit the truth from you. Which is why, my sweet umagi, as much as I regret it, I must permanently erase from your memory every delectable moment we have spent together as our true selves."

"Master?"

He leaned towards her. "Don't worry, Jiarine. This won't hurt." He smiled coldly. "That part comes later."

"Tortured?” Annoura stared in disbelief at the Dazzle kneeling before her. "You expect me to believe that Lady Montevero — a Favorite in my personal court — was tortured? You must be mistaken, Ser! She was simply taken for questioning, and to be detained until a Truthspeaker could arrive to verify her word."

The Dazzle bowed deeply and kept his eyes lowered. "I went to visit her this morning, to bring her a few trinkets to help pass the time. There isn't a fingerspan on her poor face that isn't bruised and mottled . . . and her hands, her poor hands. All her fingers were broken. She was barely conscious. All she kept saying was, 'I am innocent. Tell the queen I am innocent.'"

Annoura rose to her feet. She clenched her hands at her waist to keep them from shaking. "Get out. All of you. This instant!"

The courtiers knew that tone of voice. Every last one of them leapt to their feet and beat a hasty retreat.

Annoura began to pace, her mind a whirl. First, Master Fellows's near death, then the revelation about Lord Bolor, then the manhunt across the city that still—even a full day later—had turned up nothing.

All that had been upsetting enough, but this news... this defied all belief.

After Master Fellows had named Lord Bolor as his attacker—and an Elden Mage to boot—she had, of course, wondered if Jiarine's fervent attempts to insinuate him into Annoura's presence were part of some plot. That was why she had not objected when Dori insisted on taking Lady Montevero to Old Castle for questioning.

But torture! She never would have approved that. Not for Jiarine. At least, not without some sort of proof, beyond baseless supposition and guilt by association! After their last months of friendship, Jiarine deserved that much, at least.

Annoura marched over to the wall and yanked on the bell-pull. Her Master of Chambers arrived a few chimes later, just as she was pressing her royal seal at the bottom of a parchment. "Your Majesty?"

"Summon my son this instant. And send Lord Hewen and a carriage to Old Castle Prison with this." She held out the sealed parchment. The ink was still damp, and the handwriting her own rather than the royal calligrapher's flowing script, but that seal on the bottom made the document as legitimate and binding as any law of Celieria. "Have him deliver this royal writ of release to the prison master. I want Lady Montevero under this roof and in Lord Hewen's care before dinner this evening."