a single match and some greasy floor mats.” The Seneschal shook his head with exasperated pity. “Step aside. None of this concerns you.”
She held steady. “If it concerns Gavin and Judah, it concerns me.”
Behind the Seneschal, one of the guards muttered something Eleanor couldn’t hear. “I think I can talk sense into one girl,” the Seneschal said over his shoulder. Then, to Eleanor, he said, “What’s stopping you from going back to Tiernan? Is it your brothers? I can arrange to have them killed, if you like. You have good reason to want them dead.”
Something lurched in her stomach. The Seneschal smiled. “Yes, I know about your brothers. Your mother actually prostrated herself before me, begging me to take you away. Her one lovely little daughter, among all those brutish stupid sons and her brutish stupid father. We had other candidates for Gavin, you know. Prettier ones from better families. But I took pity on you. I wanted to help you. And now I want to help you again. Go back to Tiernan. When your brothers are dead, it’ll be entirely yours, even if you are a woman. I won’t interfere at all.”
“I don’t want Tiernan,” she said.
“You can’t have Highfall,” he said.
She was glad to see the match didn’t quiver. “I don’t want that, either. I just want to be left in peace. I want all of us left in peace.”
His jaw hardened. Quickly, she struck the match on the rough stone wall. It flared to life with a sound like ripping paper. She could feel the heat of it on her fingers.
“That,” the Seneschal said, “you can’t have.” Then he leaned forward and blew out the match.
* * *
The magus had begun to shake. The hilt of the knife oscillated wildly in the air and he was nearly sobbing. He seemed about to collapse. Judah was still half in Gavin’s mind, but she discovered she could be both places, in the Work and the tower. “We tricked them,” the magus said. “We tricked them, to keep you safe. You don’t love him. You only think you love him because you feel what he feels. It’s not the same thing. He thinks he loves you and that’s not real, either. He can’t love. It’s been bred out of him just as your power has been bred into you.” He laughed through his tears. “Do you know how many people the men of his line have killed? Do you know how many more have died from cold, or starvation, or a simple lack of the will to live? I’ve seen it happen. It’s hard to live with no hope, Judah.” He tossed his head, tore at the hair that fell loose from its queue. “Judah, Judah! That horrible name. When this is over I’ll give you a new one. You’ll be free. We both will.”
“Gavin won’t,” she said.
“His death will save thousands,” the magus said. “And he’s a monster. If there’s a shred of human feeling in him he stole it from you.”
That’s probably true, Gavin said in her head.
Shut up. She was replaying everything the magus had said. There must be a way out of this. There must be a way to free Gavin, and—
Suddenly she felt as if she were covered in biting insects. Fighting nausea, she stared at the magus. “Theron’s blood?” she said. “Is that what you said?”
* * *
Time shrank into the wisp of smoke rising from the extinguished match. The Seneschal smiled slowly behind it, waiting to see what she would do. “Should we move her, sir?” the impatient guard behind him said, and the Seneschal answered, “Give her one more minute to move herself.”
The smoke swirled. Dwindled. Died.
“Elly.”
She hazarded a glance to the side. Theron stood next to the open door, against the Wall and out of the Seneschal’s line of sight. His expression was more animated than it had been in months, almost like his old self. He smiled and lifted something in his hand to show her.
It was the device he’d been working on in the workshop, the device Judah and Gavin had brought down to entice him after his illness. All the bits of spring and wheel that had spent the last few months spread out on the table in Gavin’s bedroom, gathering dust: she recognized the pointed key, the green gems. Nested in the middle of the clockwork was a familiar white vial: her last, hoarded vial of gas for the Wilmerian quickstove. She couldn’t think when Theron had