have time for it to matter.
‘And then there’s your Seer,’ said Isangell out of nowhere.
Ashiol’s foot stopped tapping. ‘What do you know about her?’
‘She’s asleep in my bed. I found her tucked away in the wings of the theatre, ranting like a mad thing. Like you used to.’
‘Charming.’
He jumped to his feet and pushed the bedroom door wide open. The bed was empty and rumpled. No sign of the Seer. (Rhian, he had to remind himself, not Heliora, who was gone to her grave.)
Isangell joined him in the doorway. ‘She was here a moment ago.’
‘Looks like you put bars on the wrong windows,’ Ashiol said with some satisfaction. He turned away. ‘I have to go.’
‘Without doing anything? Without explaining anything?’
‘Believe me, gosling, you don’t want to know.’
‘Don’t call me that,’ Isangell snapped. ‘I’m not one of your animals. This game you play is getting serious, Ash. Real people are being affected by it.’
He gave her a fierce, empty smile. ‘The game was always about real people. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to bring them to heel.’
5
The Lady Livilla’s rooms had no windows. Topaz and Bree shared one room and the rest of the lambs from the Vittorina were crammed into another. Livilla had her own. Each room was connected to a balcony that overlooked a wide concrete courtyard with a canal running through it — and no sight of the sky, no hint whether it was daylight or nox. Topaz had learnt fast that you didn’t ask Livilla questions, not if you wanted the smile to stay on her face. The lambs were good at keeping her sweet, cooing over her costume closet and delighting at the cakes and fruit she provided for them. They hadn’t eaten so well in all their lives.
Topaz still did not understand why she was here, or what this ‘Creature Court’ expected of her and the others. All she knew was that Lady Livilla was kind, and protected them as the Orphan Princel had not.
They had a roof over their heads and meat in their bellies. It was enough to secure the loyalty of a bunch of theatre children.
The Orphan Princel was their first visitor. Topaz knew it was him when she heard his voice down below, singing the lead of the Bestialia chorus.
Livilla, busily dressing up the children, waved a hand. ‘Send him away,’ she said.
‘Go on, then,’ said Bree, still determined to show Topaz which of them was higher in the ranks.
You may act the stellar, lovie, but you’ll never rise out of the chorus, Topaz sniped silently, and went out onto the balcony.
‘Ah,’ said the Orphan Princel, a sad smile crossing his face. ‘That answers one of my questions. What are you doing here, Topaz?’
‘The Lady gave us a home,’ she said defiantly.
She owed the Princel plenty, but he hadn’t been the one who looked after them when the theatre came down in pieces, when Bart died. He hadn’t even glanced in the direction of the lambs. He had known what they were all along, and had done nothing to prepare them for this world of animal shapes and blood and threats.
‘Send Lord Livilla out to speak to me,’ he said.
Time was not one of the lambs would have dared deny his request. He was the stellar, and everyone knew that stellars got what they wanted. Not us, though. Not this time.
‘Did you know?’ Topaz demanded, no longer caring that he’d been the one who had brought her to the stage, had cared for her so tender when she was hurt. ‘Did you know I had a mess of crawling lizards inside me? Did you know what all of us are?’
‘Aye,’ he said, and there was a world of hurt behind the small glass circles of his spectacles. ‘I tried to give you a place to be safe —’
‘We’re safe here,’ she snapped. ‘No stones raining down to smash us dead. Bart’s gone, you know that? Do you even remember which one he was?’
‘Send Livilla down,’ the Princel said again, nice as pie.
‘She don’t want to see you!’ Topaz yelled. Why couldn’t he get angry like a normal person?
A second man stepped out of the shadows and just the look of him made her shudder. He was wrong, like the Princel was wrong, like Topaz and the Lady and Bree and all of the lambs, too. His wrongness shone out of his bright white skin. He had red hair, and he wore a flash suit, all scarlet and velvet like