deep black bruise on his cheekbone.
“I don’t know this boy from Adam,” Lazarus replied, and that dead gaze swept all of them, Carroll included, before focusing on Lord Latimer. “But I do remember you, my friend.”
Latimer turned pale. “I have never met you.”
“That’s true. We have not been formally introduced, and it was years ago. But from what I see here, you have not changed a bit. The Prince’s handler, is it not?”
“Yes, I am,” replied Latimer, drawing himself up.
“No, he’s not!” Carroll cried, not sure why except that he did not like lies, and certainly would not support them from this piece of human sickness. “He’s fallen from favor, banned from court!”
“That so?” The fighter’s dead eyes seemed to come to life, glowing from within, like twin sparks in a slowly kindling fire. It was not a good sight; Carroll felt as though some beast had woken before him, not sleepy but maddened, already hungry for the kill.
“Fallen from favor, have we?” Lazarus repeated. “Lost our cozy royal post?”
One of the men—Ellens, it was—grabbed the sword stuck in the wall and began to yank on it with all his might. He managed to pull it free, but his hands shook so badly that the sword clattered to the ground.
“We want no quarrel with you, no quarrel at all!” another of them babbled. “Take Latimer, the boy if you like, but let us go free!”
Moving casually—but oh, what a deceptive casualness that was; even Carroll could see that it hid a wealth of purpose—Lazarus set his torch on the ground, where it continued to burn lopsidedly, illuminating the short man whom Carroll had gutted. The crimson sparkle of innards made him feel sick . . . but not regretful.
“I suppose you paid this pigeon for his services, too,” Lazarus continued. “I suppose he was agreeable to have the four of you gang up on him in the middle of a filthy tunnel?”
Ellens and his short companion suddenly broke forward, trying to dodge. Lazarus grabbed Ellens and swung him around, bashing him against the wall. Latimer had broken toward the upper level as well, but Lazarus caught him easily, wrapping an arm around his throat. Their shorter companion fled, screaming, and Lazarus watched him go for a moment, then shrugged. His eyes flicked to Carroll, then to the sword, which lay on the ground.
“You. Take your steel and leave.”
Carroll picked up his sword. Latimer, his neck still locked beneath Lazarus’s arm, had begun to wheeze and choke. Every nerve in Carroll’s body told him to go, flee, but he held his ground. He could not flee, for he owed a debt now . . . and though the boy in front of him might be no more than an animal, even animals deserved to have their debts paid.
“I am Carroll, of the Queen’s Guard. I owe you, sir.”
“Sir!” The boy lifted his eyebrows, and again Carroll had the sense that he stood before a beast, held from him by the most flimsy of cages. “Well, Carroll of the Queen’s Guard, you’re a polite boy. Far too polite for this place. Get out of here. I have business with this man.”
“What business?” Latimer demanded, wheezing. “I have never met you!”
“You have a tattoo on your hand that interests me. We will discuss that first, and then go on to lessons.”
Latimer’s eyes had gone wide and glassy with fright. But it was Lazarus’s eyes that held Carroll transfixed, for he could see the murder there, flat and lifeless and not choosy in the least.
“Go now, Queen’s Guard,” Lazarus repeated. “Run, and don’t look back.”
Carroll’s store of bravery was all used up. He fled past Lazarus, mindless of the darkness now, only wanting to get as far from that deep stretch of tunnel as he could. He ran faster when Lord Latimer began to scream, terrible screams that echoed in Carroll’s ears long after the true sound had ceased. He felt sick and dirty, infected . . . but this was an infection he did not suffer alone.
They know. The thought pounded wildly through his head with each step. They know. The Queen, the nobles, all of them. They know what’s down here, and they do nothing. He felt himself tottering right on the edge of madness, knowing that these tunnels would be in his head, always, even if he lived to be a hundred. He would not escape, not now and not ever, but still he ran, not even trying to navigate, only